Fetch Poem by Philip Hammial

Had me a word up. One. Through water
it went by some way
I could not follow. In
the depth of me was there
the death of you? Who? Who fell
in summer, couldn’t wait for fall, skirt
up around her pretty neck, wrinkled now
with some ripe age. If I was her
I’d put a collar on & a chain
to a hand, not to fly: Beard
some ship, a bread to count, that
sort of thing that in, to quote
Martin Duwell, a blasé literary culture
like Australia’s gets a chop, tall poppy
not welcome, our verse with feet
on solid ground. Found, the car
with the least juice, scare schoolboys
gone for a spin. So farewell
my best word. Impossible now
that word to drive, chain
to a mistress (me the bucket,
I’m sent to fetch). If I’m good
she’ll give me a choice – drown
in a dungeon or the posterity
of a roadside memorial: ribbons & flowers
on a telegraph pole.