in the vacant lot after lunch

hot air smelling of takeaway across
commission flats
flaxen heads of spear grass
mob-streaming the same way

in a corner of the rectangle
             Y tree trunks
their negative spaces                 filled with jig saws of
whatever’s up: cloud, roof tiles, cranes, foliage, sky...

we can’t recall when you turned your back
started to simplify                     but you’ve ended up wild
a shadow in the foreground    a blot on that clot of lupins
and we reckon you’d pick up a stone
if there were anyone here to aim it at

Ross Jackson lives in Perth. He has had poems published in many literary journals and on some Websites. Darling, let’s say was awarded second prize in the 2014 Poetry d’Amour and Sazanami was highly commended in the 2014 Tom Collins Poetry Prize.