Evening Star

This happened to me. 1994: She radiated
like a celestial, perusing the pages

to unnerve me. Was I so positive
of money as an imperative? She closed

my Year 12 visual arts diary. How
the fuck had I been fooled into studying

Civil Engineering? Joining
the cluster of other fish, with affluence

the sacred covenant to save us from
the curse of the stream. I left the lecture

hall quietly, subtracting eye contact
from the dismal and the damned. Credit

/cash fetish supersedes exchange-value
in the swamp, becomes their Real; happy

-ness, a slight, semantic effect. I trudged
out of the campus, through the Botanic

Gardens. The sun, toppled. Status
I shall forever sniff a nose at. Engineers

spineless serfs or psycho masters. I had
the high school sketches in my bag

and reached the riverbank. Drive
something parents plant inadvertently

in infant’s language. Mum wanted me
to become a doctor, actually. Finding

a joint with cheap rent, not easy. I wasn’t
long for buying things at whim. I sat

down to make a decision. I was 18
with my arse stamped on the grass

staring up at Venus perforating
the lavender sky, her talons of light.