Summer in the Southern

I miss those days so warm

that even laying in bed

atop the wavy blue sheet

caused a slow pool of my

salty perspiration

to turn my sternum into a lake

in a valley next to my heart,

and paste my uneven bangs onto

my wide, empty forehead.

 

Those days whose only solace comes

from an endless walk three blocks

down egg-cooking tar to the station

and hopping on a train-any train

with a climate controlled by

an anonymous god,

salvation for hundreds of Queensland children

baptized as the doors fold open.

 

Sitting in antarctic seats

staring through my own pupil floating in the window

onto the ever-passing suburbs

mindlessly as houses pass with time

No final destination, but to be a passenger

at the mercy of the timetable,

escaping the Island’s sun.