Father Is In Insurance and Out Most Nights
by Gayelene Carbis
In my father’s car
parked outside the commission flats
in Surrey Road South Yarra
where my mother’s best friend lives,
my brother is beeping the horn but
I don’t think it blasts
all the way to the eleventh floor.
That hand on the horn
is the only thing
that can flush my father’s face.
We wait and wait:
the pitch of night surrounds us like an island.
In green trees and dark bushes
the hood of the car is as mysterious as undergrowth.
What’s he doing?
boredom descends on us
with the darkness
and we see the moon like a trimmed fingernail
that seems to smile. Its light comes slanting
through the windscreen dimly and I am
dumb with knowledge I cannot name.
My mother waits for the three of us
our dinner cold and the lights out
to save on bills.
We end up paying anyway.
Gayelene Carbis is an award-winning writer of poetry, prose and plays. In 2012 Gayelene was awarded a Scholarship for a Banff Centre Residency; read her poetry in Banff and New York; and was Shortlisted for the Fish International Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been widely published in Australia and overseas. Her latest play will be performed in New York, Chicago and Melbourne in 2016/2017. Gayelene teaches Screenwriting (RMIT) and Creative Writing (Melbourne University).