He brought home six foot one,
knitted ribs under a cartoon T-shirt
and a knobbly attitude the local kids stepped round.
Home to neighbours' whisper
dribbled cockleg on his mother's door.

Two more generations
even at their most teen
have heard the parent ritual in their heads
tagging him with handcuffs
the whiff of mental ward
and all their unsolved nightmares.
Crossed fingers in his shadow.

Now his mother's passed
they watch him prowl away to spend his pension
on whoknowswhat that's carried in his jacket
back to the shutdown of her rooms.
You couldn't call it natural:
his TV mutters secrets, and his headphones
privatise the metal gnash of cyberpunk
since nextdoor brought the cops.
Who knows if he eats
some nameless cauldron stew or ripping raw.
How come he smells of lemon laundry
like family's son or father.

Lately by night
he rummages street litterbins to hold
something of someone's in his hand:
tonight this crumpled cardboard
its flared name ticketed two hundred bucks
empty of running shoes.

Aileen Kelly lives in Melbourne, and her poetry, widely published in Australia and elsewhere, has attracted major Australian awards. Her books include City and Stranger (Five Islands Press).