dark of the dark

dark of the moon in the dark

of year, somebody in a Subiaco

subway chanced it, ended up with water

up to their windows, winds tip houses

up-side-down, send them along water

courses, people wake up sailing

in their beds

my two year-old grandson says he’s

busting, I take him, sit on a stool in front

of him, hand on his waist, he looks at me

sighs, asks about the pipe leading from

hand basin, I explain – water goes down

the plughole, into the downpipe, up over the bend

through the wall, continues along the side of the house

under the paving, then into underground tank near the

rocks where he was playing

we both sit quietly, then he points to the pipe, says

say again, so we both track a slug of water three more times

I’m finished, he says, leaving nothing

when the other perceives me, it’s in reflection

so she’ll collect that scrap of something left

in a dream, tiny short sound vocalised in the

root of throat just as body lifts into first

moment of sleep