Australian
Poetry Journal

Issues / Volume 5 Issue 2 , November 2015

Poem

Being outside

Virginia Jealous

  In the courtyard 
  beyond food stalls 
  
  a young man 
  raises his head, 
  
  howls like a dog. 
  A ragged pack 
  
  lies at his scabbed feet. 
  Dirt is embedded 
  
  in his skin, under his nails. 
  It looks as if he has grown here, 
  
  as if wherever he is 
  he is always outside.