Efi Hatzimanolis #14 Dam Picnic Grounds

Step back, 
in a landscape of uncanny trees,
from a Barbara Baynton story perhaps,
childhood
dam picnics
in the 1970s
- Avon, Cataract, Cordeaux -
the all day soccer
chaotic, and rigged
against the little ones, 
we girls 
pushed out of playing centre forward,
I heard, “Men and Women of Australia.” 

- how the affect of distance 
collects in the desire
to dam
the feeling 
that leaks
from a memory -

The forest of widow makers reappears,
when I try to choose my memories.
Immovable under their canopy,
in their incomplete shade, 
the deeply asleep parents.
The dark grounds
of their Greek coffees hot still

but this is not how I remember it,
this is how I forget I've forgotten,
in order to return
here the distance