THE GIFT

Sharon was forty-six

but looked older -

damaged goods, tough life.

Lisa, her mother, was sixty-nine

and apart from mild obesity

was in good trim.

Shaz’s kidneys had packed up

and daily dialysis for years using a machine

with blood-filled serpentine tubes

and wheels that turned for hours

in silent relentless accusation

had become more than she could bear.

Her mother, it turned out, was compatible

and the discussion settled on a transplant.

The two theatres were readied for the event.

The donor kidney was removed, packed in ice

and Jason the surgeon was feeling good

when the anaesthetist announced

“Houston, we have a problem!”

“What do you mean, Gaspo?” Jason asked.

“She’s gone into asystole,” Gaspo replied.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jason asked.

“Look for yourself: line as flat as the Nullarbor,” Gaspo said,

pointing to the screen where the cardiograph

normally squiggled messages of life.

“Christ Almighty, then bloody-well zap her!” Jason shouted.

“No use,” Gaspo replied, “she’s not fibrillating.”

“I don’t give a shit!” Jason bellowed, so Gaspo zapped her

but nothing happened.

Thinking a hundred thoughts at once Jason said,

“OK – we’ll open her up and collect the other kidney as well.

No use to her where she’s gone.”

Jason took the scalpel, thrust, and bright blood

flowed from the new incision.

“Gaspo!”  he shouted again. “What the fuck is going on now?

Where’s this blood coming from?”

Gaspo turned, more ashen than previously

“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” he said.

“The fucking ECG lead came out of the machine.

She’s actually fine!”

Jason regained his strength,

sewed up the new incision but he was boiling.

“Gaspo, when you’ve got her back to the ward

just piss off fast because I’ll be chasing you

with an ECG lead and I’ll fucking strangle you

if I catch you. Got it?”

Back in the ward, side by side, mother

and daughter were in pain but bright and well.
“How did you go with Mum? Shaz asked Jason

“Fine” he said, taking her hand

“We just had to check her right kidney

to make sure it was OK so we could take

the left one for you

so she has a cut on that side too.”

“And was it OK?” asked Shaz.

“Perfect,” Jason smiled. “Just perfect.”

THREE SISTERS

The mist was light on the Blue Mountains

in September ’87.

My Dad and I stayed in Katoomba

at the Cecil, its glory reduced  

to creaking stairs and the smell of dust.

He spoke of back pain

and on the short walk

from the Three Sisters to Echo Point,

his unusual puffing and stopping

made me fear

something  seriously wrong.

He died next year at 78. 

Sixteen years later

Florence, his oldest sister, hung on,

blind and emphysematous until

I returned from New York.

In three days she yielded up her spirit.

She had cared for their father,

a minister from England, until his death.

She preached his sermons

when he no longer could.

Then Marjorie in Melbourne, even more devout,

left a manifesto about her anticipation

of heaven, and Janet, bereft by Marjorie’s death,

refused surgery for an obstructed bowel.

At night with visitors at the lookout

at Echo Point, tourists gone,

I see the three sandstone sisters,

ghosts of my aunts illuminated

by the propositions of their faith.

I wonder if in the abyss

that separates their time from mine
truth will one day be found.

CHIMERA

Left cheek

dimple right mole

left smile crinkle

left hand grasps right:

one writes while

other plays bass.

Rogue singer of songs

of love, charmer,

iron temper, tenacity,

high achiever and mollifier.

Sinatra sinister wrecked furniture

in tantrums, enthused

Frank dexter caressed,

caroused all night

every night till the blue light

of dawn announced.

Binary but three or four

dimensional. Rubik’s cube

more than jigsaw. Jekyll

hiding or Hyde jeckling?

Two sides of the mask,

alternative dancing,

sad capriciousness

of the wholeness

our truth.

Fiftieth Reunion

From this distance the old city on the hill

looks now as it did back then,

gold in the slanting sun of the afternoon,

its honeycomb walls standing strong.

As we approach we see a breach

or two we missed before,

signs in its masonry,

in its gates and gargoyles

of the wear of history.

For six years we lived

behind the battlements and portcullis,

compelled to recite the doctrines of medicine

the rigid orthodoxy of anatomy

the poetic excursions of psychiatry

the catechisms of surgical belief,

soundly indoctrinated

until we were deemed safe

to go forth, steady in our conduct,

observant despite accumulating doubts,

until our time was past.

Today we are back and we see faces

that gain in familiarity as we talk,

the wrinkle and sag of age erased as if

by magic not of our making.

Within an hour the intervening years

have slipped away

into an implausible past.

Implausible but not impossible:

something must have happened

between now and then

something that has made us old

that has cracked the city walls

that has chiselled and smoothed

the faces of the gargoyles

that has caused the solid iron gates to rust

and hang, rather as I feel some days,

limp and slow with crepitus

and diminished clang.

We know a lot but understand so little

about what happened.

Soon we will be sent away again:

this time we will not be leaving as emissaries.

It's getting late: the afternoon is nearly gone

and the sun is moving, creating new horizons,

seeking new cities beyond to illuminate.

Taking care

"It's time for me to go,

little horsey," she whispered

as he stood beside her bed.

"Where are you going?" he asked,

with the innocence of six.

He'd come to know what being sick

was like. Nine months she'd gradually

run down, her illness feasting on her body

like a fool, a glutton at her bones,

gnawing at muscle, loosening skin

making her too weak to play -

the occasional bedtime story

was all that she could do.

"Daddy will still be here

and Grandma too," she said.

Then through breaking tears he asked,

"But who will take care of you?"

IMPERIAL WARDROBE

Let me see –

What shall I wear today?

Which suit will suit my purpose

when meeting the director general?

Not this grey one

a decade out of date

that no longer fits.

But in its pockets I find

Notes of my anxieties and ideas

that I nurtured and discussed back then,

which framework, which stakeholder

will lead to more efficient operation,

how to cut the budget,

eliminate waste and maintain

industrial peace in our time.

The notes are there:

unlike the suit

they’ll feature fresh

In today’s discussion,

It’s not the suits per se

rather the treasured madnesses

of what’s written in their pockets

that leads me to retain them.

THE ESCALATING EXHAUSTION OF UNCERTAINTY

Refugees at Munich central railway station – Thanksgiving Day 2015  (Ken MacWilliams)

We have come this far

thanks to the grace of god

and to the provision of our dear father

and our two older sons

whom we hope to meet

in the next city –

but can’t be sure. 

If we go up the escalator

to the next floor

to catch a train

where will we go? 

Many are poorer.

For them, is there anyone?

They can’t be sure.

Our neighbourhood was bombed

and many friends killed.

Our sisters died

None is safe.

Why does humanity tear its soul –

for power, glory, peace?

What is it for?

We can’t be sure.