I stand by the river and look at the deepening sky
like thousands of people every day.
The water reflects me too but doesn’t show
who I am. I glimpse a hundred images.
The sky leans. All sense of what I am
dissolves. Crawling from the water
are worm-like words, frogs bleeding from the eyes.
I sink into the past as into mud—
children laughing, adults yelling voices
admonishing, neglecting me. I grab at the words
but they’re only bubbles of air. They placed me here
but have no substance. I am a tortuous lie,
a concoction of fantastic oddments.
Frogs sit on my hair, fish nose at my shoulders.
From: Hetherington, Paul, “Reflections” in Westerly, No. 1, March, 1990, p. 22.
(https://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/ozlit/westerly/all/118102.pdf)
Date: 1990
By: Paul Hetherington (1958- )