Push the button, hear the sound

Listen to the lorikeet’s whistling song.

Can you hear the call of the mynah bird?

Can you hear the flamingos in the water?

Can you hear your small heart next to mine

and the house breathing as it holds us?

Can you hear the chainsaw start, the bones

of our neighbor’s eucalyptus breaking?

It’s summer, high, emptied. Listen to the ground,

giddy with thirst. Listen to the dog shit

on the lawns, the murderous water boatmen

skimming the green pond. Can you hear

the roses rioting on the trellis? Can you

make a noise like a cheeky monkey? There are

sounds your book lacks names for. Can you

hear the sleepless girls in Attercliffe?

Can you hear the aspirin of the sun dissolving?

Listen to the casual racists in the family pub.

Listen to the house Shiraz I drink as if

it’s something’s blood. Listen to my fear,

blooming in the vase of my chest,

and listen to how I water it. Can you hear

your grandfather’s lost childhood? Can you hear

the suburban library shutting? The door closing?

The books still breathing? O can you hear

the budget tightening? It’s almost dark.

Listen to the noisy penguins on the ice.

Listen to my late-night online purchases.

Orange lipstick. High-waisted bikini briefs.

Types of plant that will never die. Listen

to your half-sister hissing to her friends at 2 a.m.

You hang up. No, you hang up. Listen

to the panic in their emojis. Can you hear

your father lighting his first cigarette?

Can you hear the foxes mating all the way

to oblivion? Their sounds are inhuman,

too human, scaling the high fences,

pressing our windowpanes. Listen

to the utter indifference of the stars.

The night is full of holes and we

grate our bodies against them.

Can you hear that, Alfie? Can you hear me

holding you, closer than my life?

Listen to “The Trout” by Schubert.

Listen to the blackbird’s chirpy song.

Listen to this waltz by Paganini.

Listen to the stage as we walk clean

off the front of it, into the audience,

the pit, the silent orchestra.