We’re new here. Winter ’95. The French
experiment with bombs in the Pacific.
Our lives feel turbulent and full of signs: Postmodernism
doesn’t give a flying duck – Richard Tipping.
“Frenchie!” the schoolyard call our younger son.
Trespass of the Sign – Kevin Hart.
One holiday, we cross by ferry
to an island even smaller than our own
– Caution, Penguin Crossing!
to House Sophia.
Its huge Germanic dining hall
is full of cooking smells and kitchen sounds,
its wooden tables, high-backed chairs
await the guests that never come.
Just our family, still in coats and boots,
are gathered round its giant fireplace.
A wintry sun sets behind the hills of Tinderbox
across the D’Entrecasteaux Channel.
One child’s quietly reading about engines,
the other’s frantically dismantling a clock.
Somewhere in the background a radio drones –
“… the weather forecast. This is Monica Attard, for P.M.”
At night, high-pitched women’s voices
fill House Sophia’s passageways.
Or is that a dream? All night I lie awake –
Are we in Europe, or at war?
Anne Kellas is a Hobart-based poet. Her 3rd book, The White Room Poems, is due to be published by Walleah Press in 2015. She occasionally teaches poetry, most recently at the University of Tasmania.