page 107

Let's Go Safe

(Robin Hyde in China, 1938)

In the snow, quietly, fifty refugees
die. Like a wet dog, the train
shakes itself. We wake
reluctantly. A woman in a green coat
walks the railway line, a thorn
in her eyelid. Sienna Gown
spits like a bullfrog, Mrs Sun Yat Sen
gives her rose-pink ice-cream.

Let's Go Safe was the name Robin Hyde gave her typewriter

page 108

A Small History

Returning to an unfamiliar suburb
on the number fourteen

glimpse, through first reader
soup stirring, steamed glass
his two-day-a-week children

the edge of a curled fist
smudged at the window.

Leaving

in the end, merely a word
maybe two

you, me.