My Family and Other Animals

Melbourne, 27th August

Most mornings I wake at dawn.
My sister snores opposite me in the double bed
she claimed. "But I sleep diagonally!"
"That's not a disability."
There's no reasoning with some people.

I put my feet up against the wall
and, perpendicular, I read Graham Greene -
undisturbed until my sister stirs and skypes
her drunken boyfriend when he gets home
from the pub. "Show us yer tits!"
My cue to leave.

The kitchen is bright and white and in its sparsity
speaks of the show-room units where Charly and I
used to play hide-and-seek. I have finally figured out
how to use the coffee machine without injuring myself.
The milk screams and screeches as I steam it
and I pretend I am performing an exorcism.

I tap my fingers on the marble table-top.
I want a cigarette, but I promised Mum
I'd quit whilst I'm here so I don't show her up
in front of these obscure relatives. Sneaking out
yesterday, my ten-dollar-piece-of-crap lighter
refused to spark. I bet she had something to do with that.

Time for family gathering #102,567.
"So, your sister wants to go into cardiac physiology.
What are you studying?"
"English Literature."
"Oh... What can you do with that, then?"
Inferiority Complex Level 9,000.

Great Auntie Eileen looks more and more
like a pterodactyl every time I see her.
"Are you married yet?" she asks with
a slap of her stick. A voice in my mind
immediately says: 'It's complicated',
but then I correct myself: it was complicated.

My two trips to Australia have formed book-ends
to our relationship with everything safely
contained in between. Here, he is still
living in yesterday and I am in his tomorrow,
wishing I didn't dream about him last night.

Sunset never puts on an elaborate performance;
night drops like a curtain and it gets cold quickly.
We drive home singing along to "I Will Wait"
and a cloud shaped like a nightingale swoops
in front of the moon and turns it to stone.