Alvaro’s friend was stabbed the other day -

through the heart by a stranger 

in the baking countryside 

with views of the city skyline behind

and children on bikes 

and joggers and dogs in earshot -

where stone pines lean stiff,

green spiked heads in bulbous lines,

below cloudless, empty blue sky

and miles and scrubby miles of hills.

He called the ambulance himself

from his own phone, in his own voice - 

it took them twenty minutes to come

and when they did they found him dead,

bled dry in the cool shade,

ants trickling up the bark tracks,

bumblebees buzzing the wildflowers,

helicopters going back and forth

with water for smoking bushfires.

And you sit and wonder what an accident is - 

how much life is luck and timing.

And you think of him lit up by the sun,

lying on his back, phone in his hand, lungs full. 

Perhaps an aeroplane, trailing dissipating tracks,

was his last sight. Perhaps he thought, eyes dim, 

‘God, I wish I was on it’.