After Eileen Chong’s Compass
Dad wakes up quickly
told me he would die at fifty-five
because his father had
that fate runs in our family
he laced his pocket in shadow and a toothpick
sucked air through his molars
an entropic portrait painted
his bottom teeth dry
tried to convince me he had anything up his sleeve
other than black art
At fifty-five the shadow creeped out of his pocket
spent in a trickle on his children
latched onto my sister’s heel
my brother’s ignition
the way I part my hair a constellation
stare in the mirror like I’ve got fifty-five years
to turn my life
into the kind of bleeding that leaves a room
having connected to dots
In twenty-five years I’ve spent one night
under the stars with my brothers, eleven hours south of Bankstown
red dirt lining our fingertips
clouds silvering the back of the Landcruiser my dad bought at auction
I shuffled wakeless gums and wattles
made shadows of my brothers in the front seats
gumtrees hooting their loss
a funeral for owls, I missed our olive
trees that watched my dad
never buy or sell a car that wasn’t on its way to a graveyard
we parked in drought and bone dust
dad’s dry molars in the back seat with me, I imagined
he wasn’t dead, only outside
living, casting the longest shadow
In our backyard with a garden hose rainbow
accidentally spraying us on purpose
water pouring down his stubble and smile, ten years away
from worrying about a pill
or an uncle, or a missed call, or a midnight train smiling
at my mother from the kitchen like ice
on his summer lip
It was and is my job to flip the stalwart pot
bubbling lemon and oil and vine leaves
steam breath on winter windows, at dinner
mum’s hand catches droplets on gold bangles and croons and laughs
at the shadow of meat falling into my siblings mouths, their kids
get messy, really messy, get put to bed with Johnson’s
bubble bath spilling out of liquid TV screens and wrinkled fingertips
I’ve got the same hands as mum
dad kisses them gently at sixty-five, he’s outlived the love
like he’ll have better luck ten years later
like my shadow will weigh less than her outline
on his bed I rummage through his drawers, on occasion
curious what immortals keep by their bedside
He’ll live forever, in the shadow of this poem
creeping out of every garden grave
yard work still red around his eyes
ten years away from going back to the shadow.
Bilal Hafda is a Muslim Lebanese-Australian writer living in Western Sydney. He is a committee member and organiser of the Bankstown Poetry Slam, and works full time at the Story Factory, a not-for-profit organisation that runs creative writing workshops in High Schools and Primary schools across NSW.
