I wouldn’t care to live again
In Frederick Street, Hobart, since there
My Aunty Viv, who’d fled the West
Coast’s mucking in and levelling off,
Its tainted, smelly cosiness
Inherited from convict days,
Became Aunt Vivienne. A first
Year student, lost to books and drink,
I boarded with her for a time,
Shared putting on the dog and sat
As English lord and lady at
The opposite ends of a long
Black dining table, where I heard
How once a lawyer, now a judge,
Had squired her to Gone with the Wind.
In bed I’d read, if not far gone,
The Fortunes of Richard Mahony,
And on my very last night there
Perked over the chenille bedspread,
Together cleaning up the mess.