Denatured Spirits

The python’s morning nap was rudely interrupted

when my body looked like his body interrupted 

Hogan was brought into custody

charged when caravan park resident

Hogan returned the python to the bush

to complete digesting its meal, although

not poisonous, wilful destruction of property

and no lawful or visible means of support,

he pleaded his last mouthful of metho one

arvo in 1996, you can imagine the scene

inside the caravan after so many days in

the Cairns humidity, dad never rehashes

without mentioning the humidity, trespassers 

will be prosecuted is a sign worth ignoring 

where your grandad once stood with his 

caravan and behind him a rush of clustered 

lovegrass charges across old gums enwreathed 

by knotvine, left at a lean by Sadie, tail in one

hand, head in the other, dart hanging off his

shirtless smirk, his body looks like my body 

except it’s the humidity that gets ya, flies come 

from nowhere and give fugitivity a chance and

Hogan pleaded guilty to both offences but stated 

the reason he smashed the courthouse window was 

that he might be taken in by a gaol and thus be saved 

from starvation when caravan park resident Hogan 

removed the snake from under the caravan it had 

just eaten a kitten and settled down to digest its 

breakfast and it must be asked of the court how 

is it stolen saddles should only fit stolen horses? 

And what business does one have with a stolen saddle 

if one is without stolen horse? The bench sentenced 

the prisoner to a photo on our smartphones in which 

a washed-up hammerhead glistened in the presence 

of denatured spirits, aftershave, kitten and python 

and a grandad stripped of the promise of life whose

commission of havoc refused death’s hottest offers

and who was remanded until the next morning when 

the python’s morning nap was rudely interrupted