Assemblage
it starts
with a tour of the house
this is the kitchen
this is your bedroom
this is your cot
this is the cat
this swaddling in a map your own possum-skin coat
boundary-marked and wrapped tight
containing your breath, your skin, your bones
you fit together your world
this is your house
this is your neighbourhood
your suburb your city your state
you fit together your friends
neighbourhood first kindergarten and school expand local maps
this is Kelly's house
this is Christie's
John lives here
university splays your map wide
slots in public transport
this tram for Phong's house
a train and bus for Benny's
piece by piece you assemble it
ignorant of street-linkages until you drive
this road runs into that
here is the cinema
here, the market
turn here for the freeway
tollway's that way
travel gives you more
this city's in this country
this lake drains into this sea
here you tilt back your head and eat herrings this way
there you eat snails
this is your puzzle
this person fits here
that person is there
the city's neural pathways
are grooves in your board
each year the grooves fill more and more pieces
disparate things come together and
you glimpse the whole
but the city grows forges new linkages faster than you can keep up
it ends
with the puzzle set solid incomplete forgotten
the world narrows
to some plot of land some damp hole some box or urn
a crowd of wet faces and the missing pieces of your puzzle
the pieces of their own puzzles clutched tight in their fists