Colin James

Australia

I Don't Either

​

Round and round we go, on Earth.

Sometimes it gives me migraine;

sometimes I get ahead of myself,

trip, fall, recover. So far.

   I just don’t know,

my grandma used to say out loud,

out of the blue even on grey days,

back on a part of the planet called

Ca na da, which I believe exists

without me, as if I never mattered

to the matter I inhabited and maybe

that is so. I just don’t know.

Now Granny is still, as her remains

go around, while I’m never very still,

half a day ahead in Australia,

for all the good it does me.

If grandma was alive, on the phone

(huge telephone attached to wall)

she’d want to know time and temp-

erature   way

                        down

                                    there

because she believed she existed

near top of a wall map not on spinning

ball and, btw, she made her own bread,

like with flour and stuff. Her daughter,

my Mum, who – I can confirm –

also, admittedly, just did not know,

was not a bread maker but was a bread-

winner and consumer of bread until

she too was stilled for usual reason.

Times seem to change, a bit. I’ll bet

my daughter, gluten intolerant,

just does not know. As I continue

to go around I consider history,

eat bread, wonder aloud at times

by making the same familiar,

transparent statement.