Source: http://www.softblow.com/compton.html
JENNIFER
COMPTON
Jennifer Compton lives in
a small town called Wingello in Australia.
She is a poet and playwright.
Her most recent book of poetry was
Parker & Quink published
by Ginninderra Press in 2004. Her most
recent stage play was The
Big Picture which premiered at the Griffin
Theatre in Sydney, Australia
and was published by Currency Press.
In 2004 she was a guest
at the International Festival Of Poetry in
Genoa. She will be the
Whiting Fellow in Rome in 2006.
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Imposing the Chat
2.
We hopped into the car
and thundered
via Bungonia towards Captain’s
Flat.
The flier intimated – FAMOUS
CHILD MURDERS -
but didn’t really GET IT.
Known Gunther for yonks.
Before he hooked up with
Ebony Simpson’s mother.
Gunther paints. Got a couple
of his canvases because
they are the real thing.
Money on the walls.
We got loster and loster.
Ended up near Nerriga.
Almost off the map. Is
it the right way up!
A baby rabbit ran under
our wheels.
We felt the thud as we
thundered on
through the fool-the-eye
Australian landscape
that does not contain any
movement. Except us.
We saw a bloke in a fire
truck, paused
in a driveway somewhere
near Windallema.
All you guys who do not
live in Australia
cannot imagine how the
haunted trees crowd
in on you and you do not
see any sign of life
until the lights of another
car rush towards you
so you dip! On the road
that goes from tar
to unsealed death trap
to two lane highway
like a joke! Had to speak
sharply to the husband.
He was doing the thing
he does that shits me.
Australia, you huge, ungainly
bitch. You lonely
girl. It gets to him. It
gets to me.
3.
The daughter was going
to make the trip but
the morning of her biology
trials for the HSC
the curse arrived. I was
naked in the shower
when she told me. I’ve
often wondered how
it would happen. When it
happened I had my
mind on something else.
My own story.
It was beginning to sink
in, what we were in for.
We were beginning to make
bad taste jokes.
Walking into the Ebony Simpson
Exhibition
raped and drowned in a
dam at age 9 - saying
“We still have a daughter.
Hah! Look at her!”
But she stayed home. Studying
Modern History.
I go down to the shop, she
is not ready to do that
yet, to buy her sanitary
pads.
Every family man in the
village seems to be there,
eyeing the sanitary pads
I had, in my haste,
forgot to hustle away. I
am losing all sense of
myself. I do not want to
write this.
5.
We were late, very late.
The courtyard
lit up for a party and
frieze of backlit
party goers with drinks
in their hand.
For all the world like
any other launch.
A muted woman, the appointed
greeter,
tried to gentle us into
our group with
a white, or red. Or beer.
Until she made
eye contact. She saw we
were untouched.
And laughed. And backed
away. Said
something that I couldn’t
quite catch.
It used to be the cold room
of the local butcher.
The carcases of local beasts
hung by their heels.
But now it is fairyland.
Scented candles loiter
in concentric circles like
tiny stars, someone
lit every one of these oily,
flaring – death traps!
So many women in those
silky, floating frocks
I am on full alert for the
tackle and roll.
The husband’s sport’s coat
will suffice.
I like to have a purpose
when I am out. A goal.
No one will catch their
hem and go up in a shriek –
burning! Not on my watch
they won’t.
And now for The Art. I
will turn and look!
Jeez! It’s sad. The saddest
ones withold
almost everything. In their
regulation
wooden-sided, glass case,
a dried leaf.
A snap. A tatter of the
poem they wrote
the night …. ! What is the
use of poetry?
What is it good for? The
night … the night …
Well. Every art work had
the night, or day.
When it all stopped. Sweet
suffering Jesus!
As my husband, the ex catholic,
is prone
to say. I have to look
at every single one!
A girl on her pony is squinting
into the sun.
Just like my daughter.
Brian sees his chance.
“That’s my …” But I forget
her name.
It may have been Jennifer.
Or it may not.
“Your daughter … rides?”
So difficult
the choice of tenses. I
want to say -
“And was she a famous murder?”
Brian tells me. The whole,
sad story.
Some local loser who got
it very wrong
and didn’t even think to
cut and run.
Her mother found the body
but has become
a fully fledged tai chi,
aromatherapy, new age
cope-a-thon. Not here tonight.
Has let it go.
A common route, apparently,
out of the horror.
Explains the plethora of
floaty robes.
But Brian will not budge
or bleed or weep.
Forgive, forget, move on.
He is a stone.
All the world will weep,
but he will not.
I make the hunch of the
shoulder, angle
of the chin, the husband
knows means -
Rescue me!
Share the load!
“I moved from Sydney to
give her, to give
them all, all my children,
a country childhood.
To keep them safe. To keep
them safe from harm.”
Which is the reasonable
choice my husband made.
And the husband is done
for. Gone. Into fruitless,
bootless empathy. The guilt,
and shame. The guilt.
We shake Brian loose but
everywhere is the same.
Some story that scalds
and excoriates. It gets worse
and worse. Can’t weep but
can’t not weep.
Making wry mouths at each
other.
I see Brian as he is about
to leave on his own.
He raises his hand. I raise
mine.
6.
We took the easy way out.
We went home
by the highway. Our car
and the road made
for each other. Working
together to swallow
distance. And a big yellow
moon!
He tried to ring the children
to tell them …
“They will be asleep,”
I said.
He checked I had my seatbelt
on.
We said nothing else until
we got home.
“Will you …?” he said “While
I …”
I did what I haven’t done
for the longest time.
I checked my sleeping children.
Sprawled
like vast continents across
their single beds.
I may have reached out and
touched them.
They may have grunted –
“What’s up, Mum?”
go back to Street
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