Dale Harcombe

Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby)

The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night

Home's Kid (For Glenn)

This time I know I will never see him again. For a time he played the game, like a child experimenting with blocks, building towers and fortresses but never bridges. Bridges are hard. Invariably

My daughter raises the smooth brass kaleidoscope and watches as coloured glass slivers conspire together. New worlds create themselves before her eyes. Garnet spires flirt with sapphire and turquoise. Topaz and amethyst meet in

Mollymook

All week, in this rented house, sea spray and whispers of wind weave through the eucalypts, like a Sondheim melody. Through the pewter leaves the sea glimpsed from the wooden deck is, at times,

Bruise blue

Frail as smoke, she drifts through the crowded train, bringing with her the cold ashes of poverty. Without a word, her bruise-blue eyes try to niggle each passenger to part with coins or a

For Joseph

Your ears will never hear sounds that to me are ordinary as air. From the hour that you were born the tight white shell of silence closed around you. You edged away from friendship.