Ian C Smith’s work has appeared in Axon: Creative Explorations, The Best Australian Poetry, London Grip, Poetry Salzburg Review, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, The Weekend Australian, and Westerly. His latest book is Where I Work (Ginniderra Press, Adelaide). He lives in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, Australia.

Refugee
By Ian C Smith

The patrolman, this middle-aged migrant,
wonders what has become of his dreams.
In the hot days he wakes, worry like a bruise.
Now his torchlight shakes, earlier arrivals,
midnight rats whisper across shined shoes.

This stretched summer, his memory of sad songs,
he considers his wife’s epic regret,
his son’s sneers, her recital of wrongs
while his new car’s curved flanks dazzle
like any parked status symbol’s should.

The son sings of kookaburras in gum trees,
collects footy heroes, baulks
bewilderment in a hybrid accent
mocking seniority, talks
of failure to grasp the rules of new games.

Then, out of shadows one fatigued night,
a neat circle head-centre in frosted glass.
Police find no shell near the warehouse
but our patrolman quits while he can,
gives his son a gun story, leaves out the fright.