How We Fled the Wolf

                 Light
expanding outward from the stove
a hemisphere at whose edge
I destroy floor
peeling up linoleum
alone in the kitchen

Mother in her bedroom
recently free from my beer-sick father
arranging chess pieces on her dresser

giant purple perfume bottle
lipstick, pale red, stick half
dry from disuse, clammy,
like hangover tongue
other bottles and boxes and
a framed photo of me holding
a football in my sleep

She calls to me
I put the lino back and meet her at the door
and promise myself
not to speak during the drive

                 we are going to the bank, Petal
                 then to the DSS

Northam is a burnt banana leaf from
the borrowed-car passenger seat
eucalypts and yellow grass
blazing us, the problem couple,
into stigmatic silence.
We are hobbled too by the money
houses, who know how far
we’ve fallen

                 the emergency grant is
                 $57.80. It’s not much, but
                 if you need any more just
                 come right back

the car ride home
is a deep sea sub
we are sunken and cold, but safe
from the outside viciousness

the house is a friend’s house
so Mum notices the lino and sighs
but this is life outside the gulag