by Peter Roberts

Leongatha, 2025

Through familiar streets I walk, after
a long absence, ghosts at every turn.
There is the house of country music
and poetry – an echo of pedal steel
seems to loiter amid the streetlights.
And here is the park, near the station,
where a furtive kiss with an old flame,
feels freshly damp, like the fog, that
coddles and thickens. The chill hits
harder near the outskirts, where three
lie deep and moonlit puddles form an
avenue of honour, stopping me in my
tracks, for fear of further injury from
these phantoms, that still talk
in my sleep.