I
On average there are 2.59 people in an Australian household. On average there are eight peas in a pod. Some days I’m the biggest pea. On average I shame myself more than I love myself. Some nights I bully peas into my ears with a bone-handled knife. When I want to avoid the hectic of writing poetry, I cast a pile of romance novels into the closest river then star-jump in fully clothed like I did when I was a kid dressed in Dad’s greasy work overalls treading water in the deep end of the town’s Olympic pool. We lived on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert. Not too many large bodies of water to fall into fully clothed. Maybe the leather-skinned swim instructor was a secret agent whose assignment was to drill metaphor into the bodies of children. I liked the loose dark shape of wet clothes, their graceful sway, the soak of heavy cotton on my daft bones. I passed the water safety test but mostly I enjoyed learning the exact effort required to not drown. In the river I scoop novels to my chest before their cheap pages disintegrate. My dog splashes at my shoulder. He too is eager to rescue romance.
II
Through the dirty car window on the road to Cape Jervis, I watch kangaroos boxing in a paddock. Horses with hard-ons gaze into the middle distance. Gum leaves pant. Or maybe they paddle, like fractured fingers in the black wind. This poem is on average mostly Australian. Mostly choking on bushfire smoke. Or something more sinister. It’s damp here too, the sky glumly grey, clouds buff as kangaroos. The windshield wipers squeak to remind me that even useful things get annoying when we neglect them. Dylan sings on the radio about being a dick for using ideas as maps, about being older when he was younger. It’s a public apology for his previous political preaching.
III
I used to worry my poems weren’t political enough. Now I just worry about my old dog who trembles next to me on the back seat, whose skin seems too tightly stretched into his staffy grin, whose drool soothes my sunburnt legs more than the idea of forgiveness or heaven. I don’t know it yet but tumours are blooming in his sensitive stomach. Dogs can die of heat stress in hot cars on average in less than fifteen minutes. More Australian dogs sleep dressed in pyjamas than not. In the rear view mirror I see a pink lake fixed to the car’s torn ceiling. I see a salty shore. A shout. A dog’s back legs broken by a cricket bat. Words float face down in the asbestos room of my childhood. On average I love myself more than I shame myself. Everyone can write a poem if they concentrate. On average it won’t be anything special. But we will know ourselves a little deeper. Know which side we are on.
Fun Fact:
Statistics on Australian households and dogs are lifted from the internet; statistic on peas lifted from a Libra pad adhesive strip.
Caroline Reid found her feet as a writer in theatre and has since developed a diverse writing and performance practice. She has published poems, short stories and a play; been awarded and short-listed for numerous poetry prizes including the Mslexia, Woollahra, Gwen Harwood and Tom Collins; and her debut collection of poetry and prose SIARAD won second prize in the Poetry Book Awards (UK). Caroline is currently working on a second hybrid collection ROOM 1824, mapping the story of her mother’s death during the Covid pandemic. She lives and walks in Tarndanya/Adelaide on Kaurna countury. Storytelling, humour and a whiff of rage are at the heart of all her art. www.carolinereidwrites.com