by Rob McKinnon
A solitary figure standing
at the same point
as many times previously,
looking again into the surf
where the awful calamity had happened
years before.
Breeze blowing against facial features
trying to offer some comfort
as the still sharp recollections returned.
The decrepit fishing boat
crashing against the merciless rocks
forcing the terrified asylum seekers
some fearfully screaming
into the perilous seas.
The disintegrating boat braking up
but some doomed still on board,
the desperate clutching for flotsam and jetsam
cruel battering with debris.
The anxious Islanders
throwing life jackets and other objects
into the incessantly crashing swell
screeched warnings about the savage outcrops
alarmed pleadings to swim out.
Memories again panicked.
Of faces of the survivors
deceased in the water
diesel smells from the boat,
then the dead as they were recovered
including children
and body bags in rows.
The wind tugged at clothing
trying to encourage a stepping away
to break the aching reminiscences
but they could never be forgotten.
Rob McKinnon lives in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia. His poetry has previously been published in Re-Side Magazine, Nightingale & Sparrow Literary Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Dissident Voice, Tuck Magazine and InDaily.
