where walls meet
By Jane Gibian
in the town there had been earth that met ditch & weed, swamp that met grassy verge; where the footpath meets the external wall of the chicken shop adjoining the border of the bank building, was a place for standing & for leaning, a place congealed in the meeting of the walls & concrete paving
where wall hits wall hits gate, what’s gone when the shopping centre masks the last location of small houses in a row, leaving no space for recall; the site of the loss of a ring near the dead-end, the thick scrub that grew before the small house, before its inhabitants breathed; the previous caretakers moving swiftly on toughened feet, the varied syllables of the crested bellbird
in the chopping & dispersing of the mountain, what’s there where glass doors slide noiselessly aside, where the odour of grease traps seeps through the newer place that buried interlinked lanes, on top of soil that made its own contours, where the city squats stoutly & weights heavily over it
Originally published by Vagabond Press