As typical of these times I would include:
a dirty needle and a rip-top can,
pebbled glass from a windscreen, some spent cartridges,
a singlet noose fresh from a prisoner’s neck,
a pamphlet proving
pornography is love, a flask of tears
from battered women (laced with children’s blood),
a cassette-tape of cries from bitter tenants
faced with rent-hikes, a food-voucher
for the many hidden hungry, a door key
to signify the homeless, and a colour-shot
of a billion-dollar Parliament House, a press release
from the Bureau of Statistics showing
things are getting better all the time
– and for their rarity I would include:
a bottle of sand
from an undeveloped foreshore, a whole spadeful
of earth that’s still Australian, a fern-frond
from the last rain-forest, and a feather
from a free-range hen, a breath
of uncontaminated ozone, and a drop (a single drop)
of water as pure as grief…