Volume 193 - Issue 7
Julio
Author: Stephen Leeder
Med J Aust 2010; 193 (7): 422. || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb03976.x
Published online: 4 October 2010
Published online: 4 October 2010
The casket was not carried out,
instead was wheeled.
Appalled family
walked either side,
his mother riding in a chair behind,
reaching out a black-clad arm
to touch then hold the lid
somewhat obscured by flowers.
He was forty-eight.
Voices resistant to the medications,
having torn his soul
with strident assertions,
instructed him how
to plait his hair, to tie the knot,
to place the chair and kick it out.
This is the best that we could do —
we are short of resources
for mental health.
We have to fund
forces in Afghanistan,
invest in new buildings,
do countable things.
He was an artist at times
pencilling the Blue Mountains,
arcades in The Rocks.
After years his wife left him,
a frowning alien
cut off from relatives
who found him,
cut him down.