High and dry inside this tall box,
rolled towels sealing leaks
of paranoia below the door.
Other tenants – every
nuance of unpreparedness.
Empty tins, tossed out windows
after dark, licked clean
as the spooked streets they litter.
Conflicting reports have running water
running dry within days / a few weeks.
Meantime, mostly, there’s Wi-Fi;
listening at walls with empty glasses;
stealing glimpses past the edges
of shut blinds. Two storeys down,
a young father fishes for birds off the balcony
with lures made of scrunched tin foil.
Occasionally couriers,
clad like surgeons, pedal by below
on the way to well-heeled towers,
making a killing delivering drugs
and major food groups.
………………..
Adam Stokell’s poems have appeared in various journals, including Cordite, Plumwood Mountain, Communion, Meanjin, Black Bough and Re-Side. A full length collection was published in 2018, ‘Peopling The Dirt Patch’. He lives in Hobart, Tasmania. Tweets rarely @agstokell