Customhouse Quay
She’s out of sight
behind the black Brasilia,
Slav, I think, Ukranian,
her soulful English,
dark eyebrows,
bewilderment.
We migrate or drift
to the antipodes
from God knows where,
clouds resembling barbed wire,
or a Balinese shadow
puppet play.
We are proverbial
ships in the night. If we met
we wouldn’t know what to say;
age, appointments and circumstance
move us on. Though she, I guess,
will stay, taking orders,
wiping these surfaces,
working for a pittance
until the someone I used to be
comes her way.
by Michael Jackson
from Dead Reckoning
Auckland University Press, 2006
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