A black swan glides
through the reflected sky
as Margaret sketches
the gentle black curve of neck
from the riverbank.
Margaret remembers
the potter’s wheel turn,
in the hospital after the war,
the clay molded by the soldier’s hands,
the tremble gone
just for a moment.
Sometimes in Margaret’s dreams
the soldier reaches up
into a banksia tree
to pick the bright orange blossom
which has somehow captured the sun
in the dark blue night.