Currawong Anniversary
Ana Davis (Griffith University)
‘History is the things that stay with you.’
—Paul Beatty, The Sellout, 2016, p. 115.
1.
Currawong comes every October. His depthless bird’s-eye peering through the glass. He (I just know it’s a ‘he’) makes a thick-winged swoop. Struts along my balustrade like he owns the joint. Doesn’t respect my privacy. I could be half-dressed, naked… I like the way you look, I like the way you smell, he said as we huddled together in a Main Street cafe. Me, so love-struck. Him? So, why-not? —like he was choosing the colour of a new shirt. That black bird, shuffles obliquely on the edge head turned aside not quite meeting my eye. Giving me the side-eye. The café was called ‘Why Not?’ Now, and every year since, I watch his old-man, head-jutting, bird-walk & wonder: Is it really you?
2.
The summer I first moved in, we ate sushi, cross-legged on my deck in the trees. Pleased with my purchase, Pete threatened to move in. By winter, we were flying to Japan. His jaw stuck. Could barely open his mouth. He ate so bloody slowly already fading. In the darkened airport bus he fell asleep on my shoulder. I could barely get him into the hotel room. We fought that night: slept back to back. We woke to snow on a Tokyo street. Like a life-size snow globe, the flakes drifted past the port-hole window over our bed. Miso soup and mandarins for breakfast.
4.
He kept his secret well. Insisted on navigating us to the mountains, so that we rattled along in three slow trains instead of one fast. The words never really left his trap-jaw. Nostrils flared and red from the steam of the hot spring. Was it before or after Japan I found out? Time twists & goes circuitous, just like those blasted trains.
3.
It’s been 10 years & I dangle on new husband’s knee. A tree branch crashes—right by his head. Bloody hell, Pete! husband cries. Squints up at a flurry of leaves. He’s hiding up there! Says, that bird won’t leave him alone. Happy now? I join in. You’ve inveigled your clawed feet into family myth. The first year it was a comfort. I laughed at his clever device. Now it’s just history.
Ana Louisa Davis lives on the lands of the Bundjalung Nation, northern NSW. She is currently researching a Master of Arts at Griffith University. She has been shortlisted in various literary competitions and published in The Saltbush Review and Openbook literary magazines. She likes to write across and within the genres: poetry, playwriting, personal essays and fiction.
