1.
Corellas forage at the northern end
of the beach, foam-coloured
with fluorescent stains
under the wings and pink on the nape
visible only when the wind
parts pages of feathers.
The eyes are set in a compass
of grey-blue skin, the right eye
confident that it is the centre
of some cheerful farce, the left
following the shifting periphery
of the flock.
The whole swashbuckling gang
roils over the sand
selects and rejects twigs
and strips of seaweed.
One bird stalls, listening
to a pale stalk poised
between beak and claw
then on, toiling over the dune
riding on bossy thighs until the sky
washes in under them
and they rise in shrill protest
in the air they are one wing
of bird twisting in the citron air.
2.
Immigrants to Whajuk country
they live in a cloud of hysteria
an ancestral memory
of a caged pet keeps them roving
their cries are updates
on the current shape of panic
loud with drought and fire.
They roost on the foreshore
to spend raucous nights
inventing a past, sharing
quips and homilies.
Like the crews of men
who fly in and out
from mine-site to city
their stories are the broken
ends of sentences
their shrieks announce
some wider severance
of time from place.