Coconut Slice.(Poem)

 
COCONUT SLICE 
 
   Trish Love turned up on the verandah with a coconut slice she said 
   it was a coconut slice we wouldn't have known, it was three layers 
   of brown stuff 
 
   Dad never thought much of slices he said they were neither a cake 
   nor a biscuit give him a good Sally Lunn any day and we didn't know 
   Trish we'd only ever seen her rounding up Garth's cattle on a 
   motorbike so we wondered what she wanted 
 
   after she came so did others we never said he'd gone but the word 
   had got around and they all brought something--cakes with bits of 
   burnt date or walnut poking out or split scones with lemon butter 
   stuck to Gladwrap or they clutched posies of January geraniums or 
   Arum lilies it wasn't even the funeral why were they bringing 
   flowers 
 
   Don't you go putting arum lilies on me when I'm dead he said I don't 
   want those gloomy old things on my grave he could see them growing 
   out the front of Colin's house three clumps holding up the verandah 
   heads neon cones climbing out the dark leaves when he was dying all 
   he could do was sit there looking at them it was like ...