Normal

Might we have been happier, dear

if we had just been, well,

a little bit more normal

with, you know, car in the drive

pebbledash semi furnished in g-plan

rooms knocked fashionably through

and ice water that magically flows

from a peremptory fridge door?

Instead our haunts were all Bohemian

our houses singular decorous ruins

with leaky roofs, bad plumbing

(never mind that elegant line

of brick stringcourse and cornice)

and all our friends and neighbours

pressing their attentions on us

like a casting and audition list.

Let’s fall in love all over again

with plain and simple things:

morning walks in suburban streets

(sun hot, town still slumbering)

currawongs call out each to each

rosellas in dawn-hue flocks on lawns

milk bottles pecked on verandah steps

cream-flecked silver foil tops.