#44 Kevin Brophy 'On closure'

Today I read an academic paper

On ‘closure’ in literature

By a young man reflecting on his coming

Death from cancer.

My son 5000 kilometres away

Texted he is sick with a virus

And last Saturday the shopkeeper

At Mulan told me he has seen

Town dogs give birth to pups

Then eat them.

Someone complains to me

About incomprehensible poetry.

The good Bishop here shakes my hand

And tells me that in Kununurra

He had his phone and car key stolen.

Outside the Broome Municipal Offices

A white goddess tangles dolphins

In her veil above a garden of stones.

The children barely know

They are alive.

I read that the world is infinite

in the relations of its details

And swarming death is too.

Two Union officials came over 

After breakfast

With forms to fill out and

An incentive to join —

A free final will.

Have you made one yet?

Every day we make one

But then something happens.

Like this.