VII

Sharon Olds finished her speech
a tiny peice of spittle clung
to the collar of a man in the front row
she winced a little.

Sue did a mental count in her head
who wasn't there
Lewis.
Phoebe.
everybody else was bright
pen to paper
smiling
ready to go home.
She side glanced her partner
nodding off in the chair
next to her.

Anthony lawrence stuck his hand in the air
one final question.
He knew his would be a good one to go out on
he knew this kind of thing
Olds would a appreciate a good question
unlike that woman who said the thing about the Tampon tax.
What was her point exactly?

Everybody was clapping
good job
congratulations
how exciting
Phoebe's wrists were sore

from where the handcuffs cut in.
She thought about it one more time.
What was her story?
How would she structure it exactly,
face to face?

Who would be the narrator?
Would it be a short story, or a poem? Fiction
or non-fiction?

The grey door before her clicked
and opened. The festival had come
to an end.

She let her story begin.

VI

As the La Trobe students gathered
and mulled about out the front
of the cafe, their cigarettes
slowly polluting the morning air
Lewi's body was turned,
a piece of bark flicked
from his cheek
by a sergeant in a shirt
that pulled too tightly under his armpits.

The sound of the full body zip
crisp
shuddered over the brown river.
A female constable turned her face away
and thought of her son
and tried not to think about
the onyx coloured bruises
ornate upon the unbroken skin
of the neck.

Probably drug related
they all thought, because it made them feel safe
and far away
he probably deserved it
if it was drug related.

Someone turned a La Trobe student ID
over in their plastic gloved
hands
Lewis White Bundoora
he's from Melbourne
"shit shit shit"
lift the body bag into the ambulance
"I do not want to make that phone call."

V

Martin walks Annie along the Murray River everyday after work.
Annie is a King Charles Cavaliar,
with with a soft brown nose. She trots in front of him,
every now and again, glancing back,
her tongue out.

It must be about 6.30pm, just before the sun has fully set. When everything is harder to see, sometimes harder to understand.
Martin thinks while he walks, lets his mind wander. He once said to his wife,
"I'd be insane if I didn't go on my walks." She had rolled her eyes,
crossed her legs, and
changed the channel on the TV.

"I have long legs, good for walking," Martin thought.
His wife was short.

He walks along the brown banks,
tufts of green beginning to emerge,
"Summer can't be that far off," he thinks,
gumtrees splay their khaki green leaves on one side of him,
the river on the other.
 Annie is off the lead. Her tail wags, her nose sniffs the ground,
"As if following an invisible map," Martin thinks.
Annie stops by a tree, it's silver bark in the half light catches Martin off guard,
"How Beautiful."
His eyes fall to where Annie sniffs at his feet.
She has something in her mouth.

"That looks like a finger," he thinks.   

...

IV

That night I had Sharon Olds poem “Sex without Love” in my head

Although I couldn’t think of anyway with words

To express myself as cleanly as Olds

I felt there was something comforting

About looking down at my naked belly

As I slipped into the bath

And imagining a baby in there

That has come from love.

Perhaps I thought,

I can only express myself physically

When it comes to certain feelings

Words aren’t enough for me

Unlike these Writers at the Festival.

Will sat opposite me

Tiny islands of bubbles formed

In the hot water between us

I took a swig of champagne from the skinny glass

On the edge of the tub

It was cheap

I smiled at him

He didn’t smile back

He was feeling bad.

A loud knock

At the hotel room door

We were silent

I didn’t look at Will

It came again

Will hauled himself up

Dried himself quickly

Rapped a towel around his waist

I prayed to God that would not be the last time I saw those hips

“Coming”

Will shut the bathroom door

Muffled voices slipped under it

They were deep and persistent

I stood up, water trickled down my pale body

Tiny translucent snakes

Will opened the door just enough so that his face showed between

The cracks

“It’s the Police.”

III

I sit awkwardly

On a black leather couch

The authors are talking to us.

This is drinks.

I am supposed to be sucking up to them

Trying to get something

Good out of them

To write about

I am no good at it.

I try to guess their partners

Their age

Their weight

Why they have those shoes.

I am no good at it.

So I clutch my champagne

And stare into the tiny golden bubbles

And look around the room for Lewis

He’s still nowhere to be seen

That bastard.

I check my phone, there is a message from Will

“Have you seen Lewis?”

Peter Goldsworthy stands

Leaning against a wall, one hand in his pocket

He is talking to some students

Listening to them

I am jealous

He looks like a plank of wood

He nods at them as they speak

I am jealous

A fucking intelligent plank of wood.

My bag vibrates again

I reply

“No.”

…

I’m sitting in the front row

Alexis Wright and Tom Keneally

Are but metres away

Their wet mouths

Echo over the microphones

Lewis is nowhere to be seen

I imagine his head on a soft pillow somewhere.

Tom Keneally strokes his stout beard,

I’m not sure if it’s the right word

But it looks almost concrete -

The way it juts outwards

Like a cliff’s edge.

How many people have fallen over it

I wonder.

I call Lewis

No answer. 

II

The grand hotel overlooks

A deep blue pool

Surrounded by novelty palm trees

Everything seems a waste

In winter

But it’s not raining here

And the sun is beginning to fill the morning sky

I’m too excited to sleep.

…

We play pool

Under the Jim Beam posters

Pints in hands

At the Sandbar.

Lewi leans over, his eye to the table

He hits the purple ball

Into the left hand side pocket

I groan.

On the TV above us

A football game

From the eighties finishes again

Men in small shorts jump together

Slapping each other on the back

“Did you see Sharon Olds?” he asks me.

I nod.

I had been leaning over a table of books

cradling her Father in my hands

when I had seen her over my shoulder

standing next to me.

I had in a purely surprised manner

Gasped out loud - it was unreturned

I thought for a moment

Of the small grey lady before me

And that perhaps she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen

And would ever see

Then maybe I thought,

I am being too romantic for this world

“Is staying with Brain okay?” I asked Lewis

“Yeah it’s fine.” He replied, his Adam’s apple

Rising and falling with the

Gulp of a beer.

“Who lets university students come and stay with them for the Writers Festival,” I thought,

“Only sickos.”

Will and I run up and down

The golden sand dunes

Gaining momentum

Laughing

And I feel like for a moment I know what it would have been like to be a child with him

In another world

He could have been my brother.

The Mildura desert

Spreads out before us

No one is around

Except for the birds that hang

And glide on the wind above us.

Pieces of torn off cardboard

Flutter on the sand

At our feet.

I am reminded of Anthony Lawrence’s talk

He said the constants in his work

Were landscape and weather.

The sand has wrapped around and engulfed the trunk of the giant Mallee tree.

We climb in its limbs

Anthony Lawrence said poetry was about

Finding something

Extraordinary in the common place,

I feel like we have done that.

What strikes me the most about the Poets

At the Festival

Is that they are cloaked right now

In the glow

Like a sequined cape of celebrity

But when they peel it back

They are still black inside

Lawrence said his default soundtrack

Was melancholy

And that reminds me so much of the poets I know

And the poets I see

These are multifaceted people

Shining in the dusk

We see them at their best – before they go to sleep.

On the drive back we pull over

Will steals some oranges from a heavily laden tree

On the side of the road

Mildura is famous for oranges.

I

I squeeze off the tram and run

Across drizzly Johnston Street

The lights of the cars blurred

By the rain.

Press the buzzer at Will’s apartment

Meet him on the stairs

A grey plastic bag in each of his hands

Hummus, carrots, chocolate.

Lewis’s face over his left shoulder

Blonde curly hair

With a dreadlock at the back

I don’t think he knows about.

He pulls a concerned face

Backs into the hallway

The phone to his ear

“If it’s too late I won’t come tonight.”

Will packs the car

Lewis gets in, after me

He is shaking his head

“I hope he’s not a creep.” I whisper

And actually hope

For a moment I feel like Marylou

Sitting in the back

In the middle

Between the two.

We “cheers” long blacks

Brought under the green fluorescent lights

Oil changes colour on the pavement

Like a chameleon

Long red spaghetti lines of traffic

Spread out before us

On the Tullermarine freeway

And then the Calder.

452 km to Mildura.