there might be snow tonight

By Adam Gibson ©

lured and landed by a pair of blue eyes

that flashed angles and sparks in the

hard light of the southern hemisphere,

that brought their frozen stillness to

a country town with nine pubs,

a cannery,

two football teams,

an Olympic Pool (closed for repairs)

and an inexorable slide to decay,

he was a goner before he'd even come.

Two years in a flash,

one finishing uni,

the other bar shifts at the RSL,

they did it together,

her accent becoming more like his,

yeah-ehs instead if just yahs,

and she learnt how to pour proper beers

the proper way,

she joined the netball team cos it was

just like handball from home

and all their life panned out ahead,

up there in the northern seas.

they tell us that there might be snow tonight,
there is talk, she says, of a storm
coming in from the North Sea
and he, with eyes that blink slowly,
eyes that say, okay, I will believe you tonight,
moves a glass to his lips and
hears the kids flighting over control of the DVD
while at exactly the same time
he wonders if he will miss that noise.