Harmony Day in Centrelink

A brown rainbow of adults waiting framed

by Mexico-Earthquake-TV

where other brown people's brows furrow in quick grabs

and a massive security guard

wanders by bored, gestures that he is watching The News.  Bucket chairs mould

women borne down by frowns that don't speak, the fighting couple 

receive calls about their debts on a smashed iPhone, the techno ring breaks the 

flourescent air and names are called which must have been given

by parents or DOCs to babies with brown and white and proud skin.

Travel Brings Out

Travel can bring out every pore, pimple and scar.  All the afraid movements, the small double-checks of the passport and wallet.  It can amplify the street hawkers the peddle peddle peddle for a Euro, the begging beings. The layers of wealth and the sore and the oblivious and the daily.  Daily routines of a Metro in the snake holes of a tunnel through the lines trudging stairs, lines of puffy jackets boots flat to the stair.  Travel can expand the sense of the poor and the fat, the true gloating of the franchises.  The networked brush through the commuters to eat free lunches in foyers and be fauned on by a Spanish chef who keeps adjusting his testicles.  Loud Russian voices speak of an ugly veil of selfhood.  

Also, though, travel can bring a great pride in navigating.  In absorbing and also deflecting.  In the strength of the upper back against a sagging bag.  The sudden pangs for a home accent while loving fast attitude of the other.