Ross Donlon lives in Castlemaine, Victoria. His first collection Tightrope Horizon was published by Five Islands Press in 2003
Black Swans
Swans go about in pairs,
she says.
They mate for life.
She spied them from the house they leased
to sort out their marriage.
She sees them splash inside the reedy wetland
in overlapping circles.
They flurry and call as they bow to feed,
never far from one another.
Later he sees them flying
through the scarlet sun,
steel necks straight against the sky,
wings punching,
bodies packed like jets,
their trajectory flat
like a fresh line drawn on a map.