Next to Nothing

Next to Nothing

Next to Nothing

My sister’s staying    things are not
where I’m used     to finding them
my bachelor hands      often doing double takes
after saucepans rice     and cutting knives
even god help me whiskey glasses    this time
I tell myself it doesn’t matter         tell myself I’m glad
to have the inconvenience        night after night
I’ve heard her cough    day after day
watched her hunched shoulders just ahead of me
getting off the 380 bus at Darlinghurst
where the wind             scrapes its fingernails
against the locked doors         of the Sacred Heart Church
if she’s afraid she doesn’t say        taking each day as it comes
heading to the Clinic where         she’ll write her name and time
in a book that faces a door         with a sign above it saying
“Radiation in Use”


My mother’s here as well    she wants to help
she always does    can’t help herself
was given kids to raise     when she was only four
living in the bush above Taylor’s Arm
no windows in the house     only old sugar bags
that sometimes in the pitch black night would start to move
mostly just the wind but once     she was sure
there was someone there    she’s still afraid at night
and lonely always lonely    death for her
will be difficult    when she finds she can’t work her way around it
for the moment though     she’s cleaning out kitchen cupboards
ironing tablecloths sweeping up camellias trimming ferns making meals
from next to nothing        just relax I say
I can’t she says as long as I can keep moving     the pain is not so bad
her bones shrinking    her skin too easily bruised (just the cortisone?)
she too coughs at night     and when she sleeps
you hear her mouth         hungry at the air
she says she can no longer pray    wonders if she should
worry about this        I’d like to say it isn’t words
that constitute prayer but can’t    when it comes to god
these days my tongue         cracks open


others of the family stay        in Macksville everyone asking them
what’s happening    the priest has put my sister in the parish bulletin
they’re saying prayers     for her recovery
(please god they’re not putting too much emphasis on thy will be done)
this makes it worse    for them up there they’re in the dark
at least down here we see    her body won’t give up
its place to circling dust motes     her walk still asks of earth
equal return of strength    she’s learning how to live
with death inside her        where it’s always been


My other sister    so we’re told isn’t coping well
taking it hard        instead of being as she should be strong
she starts to scream    when across the phone she hears the news
isn’t good lymphoma  cancer        they’ll have to operate
perhaps she’s tougher than we think    sees what even now I try to block
her sister’s body cut from sternum down    open at the middle
so doesn’t care whether or not     her cardigan’s on straight   
later on she too comes to help        ironing tablecloths and making meals
from next to nothing        each day the two of them
walk around the block        one day they get as far as the video store       
this is getting dangerous    they’re almost back to normal   
soon they’ll settle in        we’ll all be watching Charmed
and eating jelly babies        months later in the freezer I find
the apples that she stewed    and eat them remembering her
when she was young        we were all bred
on disappointment        eventually it tells


My youngest brother who’s deaf    and never learned
to socialise        or do his maths
too much trouble    his teacher later said to justify
putting him          in a corner down the back
now runs music shows        on radio 2NVR
rehearses in the bath then        with nothing written down
touches the controls and lets        his thick-tongued troubles
turn to song                but when his sister asks
to speak with him        he won’t take the phone
don’t talk to me about that    no doubt remembering year after year
in Sydney operations on his ears    he had a dog once Charlie    
so keen to be in everything     one day he jumped the fence   
still wearing his lead        and hung there choking on love


Middle brother also stays at home    to keep an eye on things
living on the edge        of what was once the family farm
(now cut in half)    he looks across the valley where
the Nambucca makes        each day the same
search for ocean    while the Star Hotel packs away
another dozen tales     the locals tell
because I was gone from home    before his stories
had a chance to grow        I sometimes find it hard
to know         what to say to him
one night he took his telescope     and touched
the shoulder of the dark
it turned and looked back galaxies
too long in the city    I’d forgotten how clean-cut
the stars         can be

my older brother     on the morning of her operation
drives us all to hospital    easier than a train cheaper than a taxi
a little later in the day         he gets his thanks
an accident on Parramatta Road    a drunken driver rams the car behind him
and suddenly the family Sigma has     damages that total more than fifty taxi trips
the drunken driver hasn’t got a license or a visa but he gets out
laughing because he’s rich        the woman in the car between
is trapped screaming        she has to be cut free and is too afraid
to let my brother hold her hand    later in the day he asks
why good intentions always bring     so much bad luck
it’s a family theme    his life divides
from when he left     his father on the farm
to go to the city     where he lived in a boarding houses full of cockroaches    
as we grow older it seems    more necessary to recall
being young       and playing in the swamp
between the farm and the hill         he was Phantom Ghost Who Walks
I was Bantar Pygmy Warrior        don’t laugh
better that than playing baddies    in childhood’s moral scheme
it’s the baddies who        are dying all the time

he gave me once     one of the old wire strainers we used
putting up fences with our father    to get the tension right   
I hold it now         to feel the way
its weight         takes up my hand.