Tall men, pale and white, stand along the Avenue
wrapping their arms around the sky,
reaching out to each other across time;
the conversation is all memory, sometimes bursting
their skin with stories they thrust their hands up urging me next!

Then again at times they lose their rag;
had enough of standing in one place
while the city they built falls into the river
and is dugout again. Preposterous they shout
as they throw their limbs down upon the shiny cars
out of control, piling up on the roadway.

And where are the women?
Grown wild, tangled in the banksia woods;
bristling with birdsong
memory encased in seedpods,
their stories are retold
with every germination.

by Nandi Chinna.