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Samuel Wagan Watson

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Fire

Fire

Fire

Fire-engine flash of fox pelt
And a plume of tail
Fluffy . . . like some oil-well ablaze on a Gulf War postcard
And from the body
It was fleeing at a 2 o’clock incline

Almost innocent in the ebb of dawn
Above the vineyards at Booranga
Sauntering erratically
As a red beacon
Across the screen of a life-support monitor

Up and down and away
This alien enigma upon Wiradjuri skin . . .

© 2002, Samuel Wagan Watson
From: Itinerant Blues
Publisher: University of Queensland Press, St Lucia QLD

Samuel Wagan Watson

Samuel Wagan Watson

(Australia, 1972)

Born in Brisbane in 1972, Samuel Wagan Watson is of Munanjali, Birri Gubba, German, Dutch and Irish descent. He spent much of his childhood on the Sunshine Coast before returning to Brisbane to start a career. He was the winner of the 1999 David Unaipon award for emerging Indigenous writers with his first collection of poetry, Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight. Since then he has written four...

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Close

Fire

Fire-engine flash of fox pelt
And a plume of tail
Fluffy . . . like some oil-well ablaze on a Gulf War postcard
And from the body
It was fleeing at a 2 o’clock incline

Almost innocent in the ebb of dawn
Above the vineyards at Booranga
Sauntering erratically
As a red beacon
Across the screen of a life-support monitor

Up and down and away
This alien enigma upon Wiradjuri skin . . .

From: Itinerant Blues

Fire

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