Mowing the Lawn with Michael Dransfield

I hate this like you do:
fast motor bikes, booze,
they are more our line, rather than
this endless scratch of living,
the stare across the breakfast bar, the misbehaving kids,
the hangover, the aching for a fix.

You can't expect forgiveness
for your endless lack of belly, the way that you
escaped from Malcolm Fraser,
from planning your retirement,
from haemorrhoids, the terrors of retrenchment,
from weekend access visits.

I choose the hottest days
because they are my childhood, time a shrinking row
of corrugated fencing:
it hurts more, the sun
whipping at your brain box,
the acid of nostalgia.

Some poet called it 'The Somme of our Weekend'
this wrestling with our gardens
but isn't it twisting it too tight
that we suffer like the diggers,
as Sylvia Plath compared herself
with the Dachau Jews?

Now, just to Whipper Snip the edges:
you missed these gadgets,
the Sydney Aussie Rules team,
AIDS, Crack Cocaine, Ecstasy, Monica Lewinski,
junk so cheap
that even kids can try it.

I loved chunks of what you wrote
but the only aching poem
was the one about the dust, the way it seeped
throughout your final house, sifting down,
clogging up the world
like dehydrated glue.