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Jeffrey Harpeng

Ripples on the Lake

The decision to let him go now can only be made by an ethics committee. That mum could not work, that they can't afford a bigger house to accomodate a live in nurse, that her first child is beginning to act out is only lead in the heart. What counts is that he could live to adulthood with round the clock care by a live in professional, for which special funding can be supplied.

and then. . .

If his mum went out shopping and he fell asleep in the pram he could just forget to breathe.

ripples on the lake
in the sound of lapping
the unspeakable name

His father has not been to see him since the rectal biopsy, and the following surgery with no best possible outcome.

desert gorge
painted high on the walls
men with haloes

She was here again today talking over again with my daughter again all the details again and again she is there, lacking her expectant light, lacking her self, talking through what she cannot decide, talking about him, the little one, whose name I seldom hear now.

shrill cicadas
between dreamtime hills
televisions flicker