Robert Verdon, #314, National Museum, Canberra

politely perusing

old notebooks

legible handwriting from 1938

caplocked muskets, fixed bayonets

that helped to conquer

perhaps even on this contested site

memories of the old hospital they 9/11ed

in a lethal celebration of free enterprise

bell-shaped dresses from the 1840s

muslin and army uniforms

telescopes and coolamons

and Lenie Namatjira

Captain Cook’s discarded cannon that they cleaned up

a Hmong family garden near Melbourne

the Griffins and a platypus

and things from my youth

this is time and horror

and science and art wasted

as they, the practical, go about the business

of business