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Saturday Matinees
Almost evening.
The smell of seaweed hanging
on whispers coming up from the beach.
I sit in the backyard, rearranging thoughts,
trying to fit shapes into what's missing
in that vast mosaic I have been piecing
together all my life. The last blush
of the sun fading from the sky, the day
dimming like a picture theater
before the film begins.
I think of the Alberton Odeon matinees,
back stall seats on Saturday afternoons
with wall to wall westerns galloping across
childhood to deafening cheers and stamping feet.
From Hoppalong to Roy, a generation
breathed the smoke from six shooters
blasting out in the black and white world
of cowboys and trusty steeds.
Heroes stood out for their good deeds,
the bad deserving of the bullet
that always found their evil hearts
without the spill of blood. Death was clean,
no more than a crumpled fall,
hands clutching an invisible wound.
The gore was kept off screen. Boyhood
backyards became extensions of motion
picture sets.
I come back. Shadows have swelled
into a thick dark. Awoken from their
daylong sleep, mosquitoes circle my head
like thought clouds in search of blood.
Copyright ©
Paul Willason
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