There’s a hushed quality to my life.
A catch in the voice, the radio low.
Logging on before dawn,
tap, tapping things out.

The ghost gums sway
as if danced by the wind.
Nor’easters blow more and more these days.
The birdsong choir a nervous shout.

The shopping mall is preoccupied.
Kids cry on like cathedral bells,
innocence peeled...
but we’re not devout.

Outside young ladies jog on past.
I blindly look having seen too much.
Leotard hips sway like the trees.
I wait for the lights and hang about.

Home again, with films to watch.
A couch potato on the couch.
At one remove live a gangster life.
Click off before the expected rout.

When I slip like a message into bed
my heart lights up like a circus site.
Prismatic, jewelled, it powers up.
Like hands flung wide, I open out.

note 'ghost gums', type of gum tree
'...for the lights' aussie expression used for the walk/don't walk signs at intersections.