Beelines

Anyone with double vision

can tell why the small black dog

steers clear of astroturf;

why the dog’s eyes follow magpies

navigating via street junctions;

why veering in squares, not circles,

the blue car makes a beeline

for a lamppost, the traffic light

goes gridlock-orange, a bullet train

is trapped on never-green tracks,

and jets fall out of a marooned sky;

why, on waking today, my vision stings

and my face is puffy: dreaming

is forced to move along paths

that are too well-paved.

I’ll sleep with my eyes open,

stop my shadow running away.

(published in the Paradise Anthology, and highly

commended in the Brisbane-Reason Poetry Prize, 2010)