Jacky Gallipoli

Jacky Gallipoli

Jacky Gallipoli, who has killed two wives -
one by accident - when he clears his throat to speak
the men beneath the melaleucas listen.
He can tell what it is to take a ritual spear
in the meat of the thigh; or to walk alone
from Howard Springs to Hooker Creek
in the dry season, to pay a ten dollar debt.

Of all this he thinks very little, and shrugs -
debts must be paid, money-debts, blood-debts:
and anyway, he knows that country, he says,
as a man might know his own shadow
cast among many shadows; knows the places
of ghosts and spirits, and hidden waters
more secret even than a woman's thoughts.

He will sit in this place, he believes, until he dies.
Grey bearded, serene, Jacky Gallipoli
politely borrows Drum and rolls a cigarette
with the hands that killed an unfaithful woman.
I will write him in a song, I say, and he smiles,
shaking his head: each man has one song,
he says, and his has already been sung.