Tuesday Poem - 'The end of the shed' by Sandra Thibodeaux

The end of the shed

You pull down the shed and ignore the long-grass

that’s trying to tell you the obvious

about leaving things go too long.

This is a love affair in reverse.

This is creation caving in.

You look at a slab of concrete where a shed has been.

You stand in a shower cubicle

without the shower, without the cubicle.

You peer over the drain,

watch the dregs of rain and try

to work out what comes next.

A stream of smoke next-door

gives permission to destroy the rest.

               Wiring, defeated, cut at the roots

                Doors, destined for pigs, strapped to the ute

                Hardware deals discounted by flames

                Tiles you’ll never lay

                A tired Christmas tree

                Tunnels in a French dictionary –

                white ant resistance

                The score of Stabat Mater

                past singing for a wasted son

                Weeping negatives

                in an age where no-one knows

                what to do with them anymore

                but their eyes burn holes through stories

                you’ve heard before

Suddenly, your lover’s gone

and you look at a gaping hole

where a shed once stood,

where a shed once stood in the way

of your Balinese vision:

verandah, termite-treated timber

and a shower with a portal to the moon,

clean as it always was,

waiting for you to clear that ugly ruin.

I haven't met Sandra yet, or heard her read, because she lives in Darwin,

at the Top End, as they say, but I am looking forward to it. One day soon.

Chris Mansell describes her work (on the back of Sandra's new book 'Dirty
 H2O' from Mulla Mulla Press) as – 'Turbulent, hot and irascible.' And that is
just about right, I would say.

http://mullamullapress.com/Dirty-H2O-by-Sandra-Thibodeaux-mulla-mulla-press