Looking up, the players have gone.
Punctual as death,
dogs sniff their way otherwhere.
A woman in a cosmic hat
strings a flag between saplings,
lies on her back – waiting.
For whom do we ever wait?
Not the team, yet the team returns.
What have they shared among the trees,
whom importuned?
A stray psychological sign
drifts across the field, omened.

Peter Rose is a poet, memoirist and novelist as well as being the editor of Australian Book Review. His new novel, Roddy Parr, has just been released by 4th Estate.
© Peter Rose
Overland 204-spring 2011, p. 115

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