East Enders Wives

We met by chance along the Roe River side
Our salt fire danced as our tea leaves dried
She hatched our plans in the atmospheric tides

Fortune Teller: Let's give up 'sacrifice' next Lent"
Rabbit: Eh, that joke's long since been spent!"

But as the Fool on the bagpipes played
We kept cool in the parasol shade
Your thumb on my page at my tender age
East enders wives
Then hidden in the boxthorn vine
We grew old as the foxtail pine
Sheep in the fold gilding our gold
Sipping our milk and water lives
She packed our bags some arbitrary time
(by the time he wakes up I'll be gone)
Then waved like a flag from the White Star Line
(Queensland our next stop, he'll be gone)
Unmoored unwell though I seldom elegize
(you still see who I once was)
We've both been untrue but I'm still counting on you like an invisible rosary
And as the past and our plans are undone,
Slowly sank like the shipwrecked sun
Bridges and boats burning them both
Burned up the sky

Choir sang as the Black Birch fell
Sorrow rang like a church yard bell
An axe to the trees smoke for the bees
All our dads died.