Sometimes it’s my turn
to take him to our house
for the weekend. We celebrate.
I give him the nicest titbits
And he spins and spins on his wheel.
When I take him out of his cage,
he wanders about my room.
He’s extremely curious
and sniffs at everything in his path.
But I watch him constantly
in case he zooms away.
Katherine Gallagher
(Published in A First Poetry Book, Macmillan Children’s Books, 2012, ed Gaby Morgan and Pie Corbett)
Dog
Dog waits in and out of shadows.
Dog dives around chairs and feet.
Dog looks for the spill of hands.
Dog sings the Ballad of Less and More.
Dog sleeps with one eye open.
Dog’s life isn’t negotiable.
Dog circles moons of language.
Dog barks for homecomings.
Dog is a name away.
Remember you can’t lose Dog.
Sooner or later, Dog will find you.
©Katherine Gallagher, 2018
Circus-Apprentice
I’m learning it all – acrobatics, clowning,
fire from a sleeve: my hand’s a wand.
I weave my life around dancing elephants
who spray the air while turning their backs
on the crowd;
lions who never put a foot wrong.
I’m taking their cue, I’ve seen
what people want.
Prancing ponies teach me steps:
pacing, adroitness, like my fellow-dancers
keeping their spot.
I’m walking the high-wire, making my mark
poised, balanced, don ’t look away –
you are my gravity’s other edge.
© Katherine Gallagher
(Published in Carnival-Edge: New & Selected Poems (Arc Publications, 2010)
1942
They’d hoped he’d be back for Christmas –
the lights shining down on him, the tree
somehow shielding off the horror. A break.
The family hadn’t seen him as a soldier,
in his uniform, among harvested paddocks,
the dried stubble that pricked your legs.
Arriving home, he said Merry Christmas,
hugged people and slapped them on the back.
Wandered about the place, eyes crinkled
with strain, lines dug
into his forehead. So young, he seemed
to be either laughing or very sad
as though, in between,
there was nothing.
(From Tigers on the Silk Road, Arc Publications, 2000)
My Mother’s Horse-shoe Ring
(after Grace Nichols)
Sometimes when I see it
on my index finger
I am reassured,
rub its ruby stone, her gift.
I need this small reminder
of her, its lucky charm
that catches me
like an itinerant fire
chipped from the sun.
©Katherine Gallagher
Published in Acres of Light Arc Publications, 2016)
Art Class on Observatory Hill, Sydney
Here, the sea’s bowl ̶
the harbour with still, white boats
and coloured flags ̶ a Dufy carnival,
lines crisscrossing, the arch of the bridge
against roofs of scattered houses, shops.
It is afternoon, late summer ̶
how the promise of ships lies lazily
across the myriad bays
reaching as far as eye can see.
The landscape-class, easels set up
have it leisurely before them.
Their canvasses reflect this bluest of light
where the tutor’s words float like gulls
wheeling in and out among Moreton Bay figs.
South Beach
This is the dangerous time, sky clouding:
lifesavers on the alert, intermittently moving the flags,
shoals of swimmers still keening the fray.
Only a narrow stretch of ocean left now
between the signposts, the spume growing wilder
lifting more boldly – you imagine yourself drawn in,
tugged all ways past the horizon.
Isn’t it enough just to be here on this ivory sand
watching breakers curl against clouds darkening, still far out,
spellbound by the limitless, the reach of coast?
Six o’clock now, the show’s closing down.
A few paragliders swoop in
while children put final touches to their sandcastle.
Soon they’ll carry water to the moat.
©Katherine Gallagher2010
(from Carnival Edge: New & Selected Poems, Arc Publications, 2010)
Unknown Soldier
We have covered him with real flowers
and taken him from country to country.
It’s always the same journey –
people standing in the streets
silently saluting
as we carry him by.
And our hands tremble
under his weight,
our eyes are shocked
by the riddle of tongues
presenting the same paradox
in every country –
the whole human voice as background
shrilled to fever
about keeping the guns at bay.
Katherine Gallagher
(Published in Carnival Edge, New & Selected Poems, (Arc Publications, 2010)
Girl on a Bolting Horse
The horse’s head forward, not surrendering,
the girl vertical in the stirrups
the black sky gathering steel.
Wind slicing the hair from her face,
the dark curve of herself going faster —
the blur of her brothers, standing transfixed;
she, holding her breath, bone-afraid
and flying . . .
©Katherine Gallagher
(from Circus-Apprentice, Arc Publications, 2006)
Australian Children’s Poetry 