Cheaper at Home.(Poem)

 
Cheaper at Home. 
 
Michael Sharkey 
 
One side of the country faces Argentina. 
Melbourne looks at penguins. So I never went to Bali. 
 
Going native in Australia may not be the same as sitting 
        down 
to satay in Penang and thinking "Anyone could die here 
 
from sheer ecstasy: I'm out of it, my own, my native land." 
That could be anywhere. In Shoppingtown, Pacific Fair, 
 
we sit inside a snack bar and discuss who's still in jail 
for writing books, and those who should be. 
 
Who needs stupas in the distance 
to imagine art must shake us with its strangeness? 
 
In a foreign cafe, you'd say cachet comes from speaking 
with a sigh of "going home," where art opposes …