train river, car river, river river

i nearly clip a pedestrian as i come out into Kerr Street tucking fingers into mitten-tops and thinking: did I take my asthma spray? Am I masking early-onset alzheimers if I find a trick to remind me of this twice a day?

Weaving around construction workers and a splattered takeaway coffee at the ICI roundabout, hard right onto napier past the soccer field in the shadow of the commission flats. The first stretch of green for the morning. Everything is singing after the rain.

Through the hospital sector, orderlies unloading cardboard boxes while the fitzroy gardens shine orderly on the right.

Leaving the injured behind. Overtaking the human racehorses training in full-body onesies at the G while baby grand pianos go out of tune in front windows, underneath chandeliers, behind hedges.

Up up on top of the train river, over the car river where once a fox followed me home in the dead of night. And then, the river river. A reporter with noosed scarf warms her hands while the camaraman sets up a shot of the city.

That’s definitely a peacock calling from the botanic gardens … scooby doo and his gang would be huddled on this hill in their mystery machine punching cones and summoning the guts to leap the fence if they could only find a goddamn park amid the champagne-coloured cars.

A wedge of fawkner park appears before the wedge heels, knee-high boots and soft ponytails of south yarra.

And then I’m at work. Flanked the whole time by green. Uphill to go home, but then it’s all downhill from there.