For Caroline Byrne

I’d never worked with glamour.
Sorry, all I did
was ogle your legs—
short skirts, a model’s
tools of trade I guess
and no one’s young forever
though you continue to be
in ways you never knew
or wanted.
The occasional corridor smile,
greetings as we passed.
I hardly knew your name
or what you did.
You radiated poise—
confidence in the direction
life was taking you.
And now you’re gone eleven years.
Hurled to death, they say,
because of secrets
you were unlucky to know,
the men
you were unlucky to love.
A long way – Clarence Street
to the rocks and darkness
at The Gap.
There’s money, power and fear,
work and pleasure.
There’s beauty
and there’s death.