Poem for Men on Manus Island #2 (original)

If luck decides your freedom and safety
Luck also decides your food and water
Your lights and airs, luck decides
Your ability to take these needs for granted.

Plastic numbered balls in a globe shaped cage.
Who amongst my peers could endure
Sitting in an ice-cream stained cinema chair
While watching the pre-show Christmas ads?

In Perth I could find hundreds of fathers
Angry at their daughters for being home late,
For not cleaning the bathroom or bedroom
From kissing Tom and Julie, fathers weighed down

With pressure to keep the Land Rover Discovery,
To afford to pay for the family holiday to Broome,
Fathers who, when watching the news, won’t bat
An eyelid when shown starving men on Manus.