Seacorn
For Bob Orr, who knows that coast
You sent me down for sea‑corn
deep among the rocks below the jetty ‑
It’s a delicacy, you said. Pick one of three.
At the bach we found the water off,
and the walls kicked in, the dunny blocked ‑
It’s always been like that, you said. It’s never worked.
The tiny tennis court beneath the trees
was wet and weedy ‑ who played this little game?
You did, every Friday. It hasn’t changed.
We left in the BMW of a socialist friend,
he in a panic went on and on ‑
I’d be just as happy with my old V‑dub, he said,
and a bach on a lonely coast,
I’d play mini‑tennis, live alone,
and live, he said, on sea corn.