By Pip Smith.
On Christmas Island there are several thousand people
locked in the raptor cage from Jurassic Park. It isn’t
really the raptor cage, it’s just what we call it.
What you call things is important. Language is safe
in the cool, sociopathic climes of corporate speak,
so here people aren’t refugees or queue jumpers
or even asylum seekers, they’re “clients”. Our clients
receive a welcome pack with a free toothbrush (!)
They also get free English classes, so they can’t complain,
and if they do at least it’s in English. Some of our clients
are rich. They washed ashore in saris, with gold bracelets
tangled in their hair, then asked for flat screen TVs (!!)
Call that needing asylum (??) Some don’t say please
or thank you, and others just have heat stroke. The first boat
arrived from Holland in 1666, before Australia was called
Australia and we were all given a prison for Christmas. A man
named Goos tried to call the place “Mony Island”, but it didn’t
stick. In 1888 the Brits found guano under the ground, so the Crown
annexed the pile of shit and began digging it out with the help
of Malaysian slaves. Today the street signs are written in English
and Chinese, and there are shrines between weeds where footpaths
would be if the Island was floating in the ACT. The locals can’t grow
vegetables because bird shit + coral carcass = too much fucking lime,
so we mine it until the air is full of powdered poo and our clients
wear blackface in negative. There are many species endemic
to the island, and many which aren’t. There are birds with red
sacks swinging like swags from their necks. They swoop on girls
in red bikinis who have two sacks more conveniently
located on their chests. There are crazy yellow ants
and crabs the size of microwaves. It’s illegal to eat them,
but the ants do anyway. I’ve seen whole armies crawl under
the shells. No one would ever arrest an ant, but they should.
Each November the full summer moon pulls red crabs out
of the forest and into the sea, where they breed before flooding
the shore with new arrivals. The ants eat them too. The ants eat
everything. The ants think they are above the law. The law
is abstract and hard to visualise, but is perhaps a crystal orb,
suspended above the ground. It is in a permanent state
of construction from the inside out, which becomes problematic
when you think about gravity. Lawyers don’t have time to think
about gravity. Lawyers float through the clouds like airborne
jellyfish. Their ancient gowns pulse in the breeze. Their wigs
keep them insulated against the cold, and when they point,
electric currents shoot out the tips of their fingers. Around us
there’s an electrical network of light you can’t see unless
you run into it. Then you get tasered. This Christmas,
cops are still allowed to carry guns but if they use them
everyone screams, Shoot the tyres! Shoot the tyres! Don’t
shoot the Brazilian in the face! This is all anyone can say
these days. But don’t worry, I signed a privacy agreement
so I won’t say it. I won’t say anything. I’ll stick to my word.
Pip Smith is an Australian poet. This poem was originally published in Too Close For Comfort and was republished with the author’s permission.
