Woolloongabba
The structure was a strange one
for a modern architect to rent,
turreted and stuccoed
like a van der Rohe nightmare;
the landlord, an eccentric man
who sensed his tenant’s kindred spark,
kept up the supply of wooden
doors on which you painted then:
acrylic vices, implements
and mechanisms, torture chambers.
Mr Smith preserved them,
awed by talent and the avant-garde.
When we took up residence,
you repainted the living-room,
where you’d set up your draughting-board,
matt black; but left the scungy carpet,
every shade of brown, including stains,
in situ and intact.
We slept inside the tower,
with the river bending like a bow
far below our bedroom window,
like a scene from a romance.
*
from The Book of Lost Addresses