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Happenings

I saw his six week old heart
blinking at me through soft tissue and a hard drive.
Almost nine months later
he’s wrapped in a towel, looking up—
he knows who I am.
             ____

He’s developing a sense of humour
even before he’s talking:
a sideways glance followed by a smile
repeated twenty times.
             ____

I surprise him in his bedroom
with a truck and some cars.
“I’m not really playing,
I’m pretending to play,” he says.
             ____

He tells me he’s going to kill a fly
with a coffee plunger.
I wish him luck,
glad to have just finished my long black.
Within five minutes he returns
with a murder weapon
and a body.
             ____

Aged 5½ he receives the first wound from his adventures
that will scar; the end of the skin given to him.
But I want to focus on his natural topography
and the tiny depression on his midriff he was born with,
my landmark.
             ____

Sometimes I watch him, unnoticed
wondering if I know who he is.
Today I explain how fossils are formed
how the area was once a sea bed
and he immediately repeats my explanation
          back to me.
Now one life form looks on another
separated by two hundred million years,
                                       unaware
we’re making his own distant past.



Chris Palmer lived in Alice Springs for 5 years, and currently lives in Canberra, where he’s working on a manuscript for a first collection.