Tonight

There's a warm rain
and the smell of gum trees -
strong enough to drown even the fumes
from crowded exhausts on the streets.

It's midsummer
but the season has lost direction.
We sit beneath the southern cross
exposed to a basin of new stars
ozone depletion has revealed,

and even though I'm well known
for a love of bright flowers
and butterflies,

sometimes I love the mossy dark better.
Colour seems more intense
against black.