Your sister saw a boy
 

Your sister saw a boy

swallowed by the river.

She was walking her dogs Tory and Sally

across the Murray Bridge

where two fifteen year old boys

were drinking beer and mucking around

when one of them fell in.

Your mum Dinga rings

with the details -

how he came up twice

then didn’t appear again,

how the 000 service

referred Pat to the Bendigo ambulance,

how the Echuca police

took thirty-five minutes to come,

how someone suggested a net

across the river, and a cop said

Who’s gonna do it, you?

How the other kid kept saying

That’s me mate in there,

how his mum was at work

no-one knew where.

How the SES*

were still searching.

Bit of excitement says Dinga,

and somewhere a boy lies cold and swaddled in river

the surface calm again

the night coming down.

 

 

* State Emergency Service


Kerry Scuffins