Along the Canal

The canal poked like a finger into the wrinkled abdomen of the Port. Along its length, ketches once bruised wooden wharves unloading wheat shipped from outports across the gulf. Pigeons stalked the spill of grain from hessian bags torn by wharfies hooks. Port Adelaide’s pigeons were kept well fed. I can remember being harnessed to a pole and taught to swim in the cold, dark waters of the canal. I thrashed and kicked but could not float. I did not have my fathers dolphin grace whose aquatic triumphs were engraved on a silver trophy that stood proud atop a fireplace shelf. In its final days the canal slowed to a halt. Wharves were empty and gave way to rot. In the end, dump trucks cascaded fill down embankments until it choked. A car park now seals its grave where plastic bags sail endlessly across an asphalt lake. A shopping precinct recalls its name in gaudy signage. Memory still has me dangling on the end of a pole, flailing arms desperately searching for something solid to hold, suspended like a lead weight above a cold abyss.