Win Seven Days in Sydney
 

As each day might breeze past the felt steam
of our slow breathing, with dawn risen orange
from black lacquerwork of eucalyptus groves;
mango syrups that dry inside bins by curbs;
joggers sweat-gilded; dog-walkers also glossed;
hum of a storm approaching on blue horizons
of the superstructure; rimes of brine that climb
beaches; smog the mauve of violin music; chrome
that taps shiny claves to set azure ablaze; waves
of windscreens a din of beaten gold at Bondi.

Buff, pink, tan, cream pegged between bikinis.
Heat fires light left to shovel its own pizza oven.
The sun smells of tar, brimstone, shiraz, ozone.
Tablecloth ties are worn to lunch, but no-one’s there.
Noon rakes every face with a crystal gaze. We’ve
been here seven days, tasting the glare lacing up
shadows in queued-for sorbets of lemon and lime.
So this is the summer of the seventeenth year.
The Opera House yawns and bares glitter-fangs;
blossoms buckle; ants raise nail-parings in thanks.

Evening’s kettle lets it settle to boil again.
Streamers break-dance like tea-leaf confetti,
up swirling over trees and sinking through them.
Fruitbats wrap themselves in darkest Darlinghurst.
Lattice knits up lattice to web the fiery nest.
Poltergeists fling thunderous furniture skywards,
as bare feet patter on lightning’s floorboards,
and pin numbers spin roulette wheels of jailed saints,
raining sweat for God, who doesn’t appear, though
big spaces compress to nothing between airports.

©David Eggleton