Poem of the week: Queen City Spring by David Eggleton

From the aura’s argent water-clock
the trembling edge of day advances,
humming a waltz topped up with schmaltz.
Coffee, apple pie,
flounder net, asthma inhaler,
small fridge of beer, clocktower chimes,
shimmering waterfall of aluminium discs,
waiting, waiting, waiting.

Wet, orange crayfish sold from a truck,
under the motorway viaduct, which frames
a sunshower’s curtain of tinsel strings.
A floorshow of ants crawls up a step,
the scattered peel of bananas is drying.
The smell of cow hooves boiled for glue,
and margarine’s copra oil, brewery’s hops,
odours of malt vinegar vats.

Gold-green pallor at the end of the night,
Krishna food in the monsoon season,
a shrub like a goblet chased with flowers,
galvanised iron fuzzy with rust.
Water runs in camellias’ flounces,
a street’s Mercedes sheen, blue frost.
The wet pavement sings as a mirror
to fresh white sheets of cherry blossom.

Cloud swells up, turns threatening,
creates a crevasse - profound abyss,
delicate, gorgeous - to founder in vapour.
In a garden fringed by the ocean,
a yellow parka collects a coating of rain.
Living, sodden leaf bursts into flower,
over-ripe grapefruits bloat and split,
sugartown waiting for its cicada summer.

David Eggleton

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