His father, working out West
6 o’clock starts, train, bus,
and a walk both ends
would insist on taking the family
on occasional week-day afternoons
out of summer’s suburban heat-box
to a pool enclosure in Botany Bay
for the luxury – ‘taking a dip’.

His mother had packed a beach bag
and as soon as Father swapped hats
the family rushed to a bus stop.
His parents were champion skiers
back home; their foam was snow.
So many daunting layers of clothing
and now the unbelievable freedom
to be – human.

Recounting this, my friend still can’t
understand his father’s zeal.
Experience is a noun, uncountable.
New country, new body.

 **

Margaret (Margo) Owen Ruckert is a prize-winning poet, with a wide variety of poetry published – Australia and overseas. Two books You Deserve Dessert and musefood explore café culture. Five books of tanka explore landscape through ekphrasis. Living in Sydney, she facilitates Hurstville’s Discovery Writers, presenting monthly writing workshops.

P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey: On-line Edition. Table of Contents