David Ray
The Knowledge
In Sydney we lived for three weeks
next to the police morgue.
We'd never have known
had our host not informed us,
for that building
was as blank as they come–
concrete blocks, windowless,
the lighting muted, nothing
to catch attention–and yet
once I knew, I'd wake
to the click of the gate-latch,
watch the delivery
in the back door, the box trundled
out of the van. Very discreet
indeed. But then I began thinking–
how our own bodies lay
on the same level, perhaps parallel
to those others–the man robbed
in his cab, shot in the head,
burned to a crisp–the pilot gone down
in the bush, flown back to town–
the Strathfield killer and all
his victims. They wound up there,
next door to us, confessions
night after night that the city
is far from gentle, that again
and again darkness is chosen.
And only the sponge, dipped
in vinegar, is soft
as it was on Christ's face.
David Ray, Kangaroo Paws, Thomas Jefferson
University Press, 1994.