Getting up to make a coffee
causes the cook to pant and sweat,
until it seems he will split open
like something roasted whole.
The door to the room where he rests
between customers
has become the door through which we enter
from the street.
Our eyes adjust to the darkness
then to the dim, green light,
of the fishtank.
Avid as a sports fan
watching a big game on the telly,
the cook has his chair pulled up close
The giant groper
undulates on the double beat
of its only possible movement;
turn and return.
Deb Westbury has developed a dual career as a writer and teacher. Deb resides in Katoomba and is actively involved with Varuna, The Writers’ House. Her poetry collections are: Mouth to Mouth, (1990), Our Houses are Full of Smoke, (1994), Surface Tension, (1998), Flying Blind, (2002), and The View From Here, (2008).