After lines by Brian Turner
They lived on the flats of Nhill
the old woman will tell you
She’s seen the eyes of shop fronts
glaze over,
vacant on the day we drove through
in our hybrid cars in matched silence
She swears on her mother’s grave
young wheat turned grey soil green
silos cracked with grain in good years
flowing over in low mountain ranges
tarped in white canvas, kept dry
She’s seen the creek run wild,
then collapse again
And she says Let me tell you how we lived
How the dead stay alive in the mind
Like today when a Salvos’ mannequin stands
with hands on hips under a beach umbrella
in the main street
Pyramids of dead men’s clothes
brush the clouds dusty colours saturated
by a rare shower limbs spilling over the sides
This is my town, the old woman says
This is her man and his John Deere
Look! Everything for sale