A man will take his chances;
dodge the buses and cars along Kings Park Road,
lope through the bushy border of jacaranda and peppermint trees,
and step onto the soft mattress of Kings Park
where his feet drift and hover, no longer weighed down
by rooms and walls and pavements.
He glides in amongst jarrah too twisted for the blade;
throws his suit down onto the grass
with his body inside it warm and collapsed;
the spine and shoulders that have hunched
over a keyboard all morning
swooning back into their sockets.
And there the two lie; suit and body
dissolving into the grass, data flickering
inside his skull, leaves strafing through warm air.
Then just as abruptly the pile of organs and bones
gathers the suit up off the ground
shakes it free of soil and leaf,
strides back into West Perth
where the rest of his life anxiously awaits.
by Nandi Chinna.