Sestina on a Former Vietnamese Boat Person at a Swan River Launching Ramp. (Economics).(Poem)

 
SESTINA ON A FORMER VIETNAMESE BOAT PERSON 
AT A SWAN RIVER LAUNCHING RAMP 
 
   Knee-deep in water by the side of the boat 
   in ragged shorts and cap he stands in the sun 
   with the wide river in front of him, under a sky 
   speckled with light cloud in feathers and bars 
   as ducks paddle past. Along the still water 
   and river bank are dogs and playing children. 
 
   A scrap of cloth covered the children 
   huddled in the bottom of the leaking boat 
   with rotting flesh washing in the rising bilge-water. 
   Fish, human, smashed under the hammer of the sun, 
   steering after life past dark harbour-bars 
   steering by a school arias and a strange sky. 
 
   There is a Vee of cormorants across the sky 
   a pair of brilliant parrots in a palm-tree for the children, 
   martins rise and dart about above the jetty's bars 
   of shadow on the river. He guides the boat 
   carefully to the trailer. His glasses catch the sun 
   flashing up from clear green shallow water. 
 
   Fish dart silver at the ...