The No Longer Man of Tennant Creek

A man with dollar-crisp skin trilled to the galahs,
And howled to the dingos’ den,
And begged the devils in a guttering growl.

He died anyway.

He lays splayed across the morgue table,
Like his mama’s pinboard butterflies.
What is it, to un-be?

Ready your instruments - everybody has a truth inside them.

Melt away the eyes with his Coleman lighter
And spark a cigarette in the warm ochre yolks.
Blow contemplative smoke at the slurry.

You will find years of swallowed tears, rotted to an oil-slick umber.

Peel away his fingerprints and laugh that now he is no-one.
You can see the story in his hands like creatures in clouds 
or constellations in popcorn ceilings.

All he did - it was only to be remembered. Was it worth it?

Because you have never believed in afterworlds or magics - 
It seems to you that he is just a no-longer-man, 
Unravelled and scarred by too many years hiding from the Tennant Creek galahs.