Alive

 

The body strong

like a bitumen road

this morning.

Sweat comes down as I run

and the sun hits firm

and I want some more

so I lose my shirt.

I'm built for all this still:

unjabbed and unmolested,

the blood within me vivid and pure.

 

They wanted me so bad.

Their hysterical hunger.

Their paper kingdoms.

They took to making a freak of me.

They took my livelihood.

A darkened winter indeed.

So I camped up north out Kakadu-way

then on to Broome.

I kept my body brown

then came back home

for just this run,

for just this very run.

I turn to the sky and know it;

know it good and clean and through and through.

They never got me.

They took so much

but not the thing that mattered.

Zacchaeus came to collect his dirty taxes.

I slammed the door in his face.

 

Twenty years ago,

the crazy fear took hold so bad

we took to invading Iraq.

Today

we invade ourselves

and we'll live with the outcomes

for twenty years to come.

 

But un-injected, un-injured,

my heartbeat unfucked,

new job around the bend,

I run and I live.

Sweat

swims

down

my

tan.

 

I am

alive.