there are stories in these windows.

there are stories in these windows

covered in the spray of the sea.

the lives inside a city so pretty

are a book that writes itself, but

there is no view that tells the full story.

there's the lady in 5g who cultivates

exotic plants in even more exotic pots.

every seedling and rootball,

every delicate orchid & hardy cactus

a newborn over which she 

cooed and fussed. the whole place

held the humidity of a rainforest 

and the emptiness of a cave.

there's the young potter on the top floor, 

whose thuds and whirs made her windows tremble,

hard at work, through the dark

and the light, it's subsistence living

dressed up as art and she knows it.

(at least she has the sea).

she fills boxes with the jugs and mugs,

carries them down to a kiln that 

sometimes works and prays she'll break

even at the market. she's a strapping

human but exudes a sense that

she won't be around much longer.

then there's the old man upstairs

who cultivated a friendship with a 

kookaburra. every morning, on the knocker,

sometimes mince, sometimes cheese

would lure the wild bird

to the balcony.

they built up quite a connection;

when kook laughed

so would the wildman,

throw himself back in an

alarming duet of bush and bear.

the lonely hearts sparkle all over

this pretty city, dotted in a

constellation that just can't seem

to reach totality. 

they go out, they come home. 

they fashion trinkets and amulets,

rituals and vision boards.

they have jobs to pay the bills

and keep them sane, but on the

nights when the tide rises over

their souls and the full moon

howls at itself the idea of 

wolfsbane can really take hold.