by Jan O’Loughlin

a long finger of suburbia pokes into
an immensity of grey-green bush

all the houses are clichés
fibro cottages and red brick boxes
facing the road and each other squarely

my new house is a different cliché
an A-frame chalet beneath tall trees
with a vista out the back

a calm sea of green laps at the back deck
the land drops down into a gully
a ridge, a valley and another ridge

in the far distance
beyond the lines of the ridges
three humped mountains
are blue-grey smudges
on the horizon

cockatoos as white as gulls
fleck the treetops here and there
cicadas hiss rhythmically

if I stare long enough at the distant mountains
this place will imprint itself on me
and the other place in the other country –
the dark house with the angry man –
will loosen its hold