Port Fairy

Bluestone gutters line wide streets, fisherman’s
cottages face each other, nets spread
across front yards. Norfolk Island pines shade

the caravan park. Beach house balconies
gaze out to sea. Dune grass rustles on sand.
Wild winter waves break against the lighthouse

on Griffiths Island near the ruins of piers,
cottages and a narrow-gauge railway.
Verandas cover bitumen footpaths

on Sackville Street. Nineteenth-century blue-
stone banks and corner pubs with verandas
and balconies watch over volcanic

rock. A wooden bridge spans the Moyne.
Fishing boats rock beside the docks. The break-
water stretches out from the river’s mouth.

The bluestone state school on the hilltop looms
over the town. Church spires cast deep shadows.
Ancestor’s bones lie in graves at town’s edge.

Kids dangle hopeful fishing lines from docks
into the Moyne, hungrily tear open
sweaty packages of fish and chips wrapped

in butcher’s paper, surf with mates, locals
at the East Beach, buy ice creams from the surf
lifesaving club kiosk, practice putting

in great-grandfathers’ backyards, watch cricket
in great-grandmothers’ houses, browse wetsuits
and custom boards in the surf shop, ride bikes

and skateboards down the Villiers Street hill,
buy bags of mixed lollies from the milk bar
across the Princes Highway, watch Teen Wolf

at the cinema, conquer Galaga
in the takeaway, eat cornflakes with milk
and white sugar for breakfast, ride minibikes

in circles at the Christmas carnival,
pop ping-pong balls into oscillating
clown mouths, throw darts at balloons, aim too low.

Nathanael O’Reilly is an Irish-Australian residing in Texas. His books include (Un)belonging (Recent Work Press, 2020); BLUE (above/ground press, 2020); Preparations for Departure (UWAP, 2017), named a Book of the Year in Australian Book Review; Cult (Ginninderra Press, 2016); Distance (Ginninderra Press, 2015); Suburban Exile (Picaro Press, 2011); and Symptoms of Homesickness (Picaro Press, 2010). More than 200 of his poems have appeared in journals and anthologies published in thirteen countries, including Antipodes, Anthropocene, Backstory, Cordite, fourW, FourXFour, Headstuff, Marathon, Mascara, Postcolonial Text, Skylight 47, Snorkel, Strukturiss, Transnational Literature, Westerly and The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2017.