Chekhov’s Mongoose: (Salt Modern Poets)

This is "an old story". Twenty-three years later, he sat on his bed in the dark in the same room. Like irridescent dust, his hair now covered his body - shoulder, belly, and of course the luxuriant beard. Only his skull was hairless, nothing would alter that. For twenty-one of those years, he had looked at each mirror and always the verdict : going gone. There was the cheval-glass in Madame Veronique's salon - she called it a salon - and the gold framed Verseilles monstrosity of his ambassadorial days, that had been an indulgence. More important was the small steel mirror - army issue - it was still close to hand, had he needed it. Like a blue army in the green heat, it had multiplied in his mind over the years and always with the same curse: twenty-three years will pass, and you will be back to where you started. Slowly, he got up off the bed. He reached for his razor.

Table of Contents:
I The Dreams The old window An old story Phoenix Aubade Deposition of the dream The letters The old king after surgery Smile Smal gothic appetites The grey lady of wonaminta Colonial The painted shore II Four Sestinas Chekhov’s Mongoose Sestina in the time of El Niño Revival Australian Horizons III The visions Letters from Gwen Harwood The dream of return After twenty years Stag in the upstairs parlour Poem for John Olson Thirteen ways of remembering the river IV Travel Belgrade, 1989 Pristina, Kosovo Fishing Lake Ochrid Dried watermelon Samarkand by moonlight At Methoni Venice For Alexander Pushkin V At Fassifern The ghost rock pool Cycle Growing pains The Fassifern VI For Dorothy my mother Figs Then Old Tom song Three sonnets on death Tree Tenant Skin as the parchment Skin of the hand Writing in public Making the news For Dorothy my mother