Dangle
Tempting as shrivelled apples
I would taste but my tongue
Would parch like dried rivers
Breaking open fissures
That would stop even cane-toads
In their leaping/marching tracks.
Is it cassowary plums that lay
As blue/grey eggs on the ground?
Will we see crocodiles
Break the skin of the Daintree river
As ferry cables past?
The forest rains,
Leaves funnelling drops
Into basket ferns; stagnant elkhorns;
The strangler fig’s embrace
Strangling day, and the last glow
Of yellow-bellied sunbirds.
I split quandong on my lips
Gauge narrow tracks
That pitch between plantations
Sea will belt its rhythm
On shattered coral sands;
Wash up box jellyfish
And waste itself on the spill
Of Mount Formartine granite
Winding sediment into the waves.