"It's time for the Australian Broadcasting Company staff to take a cold shower, stop being molly-coddled and get a dose of the real world." --Commentator on Australian talk radio, May 1996

we've taken your cold showers
in August rented flats you're waiting to re-zone
put new notches in our belts to pull them tighter
looked long at yr cold hard facts
swallowed our share of the pain
and some

but the real world
you think you know the real world
let me show you
away from yr abstract offices
& air-conditioned boardrooms
let me show you the real world

here is the woman
who carried me for nine months
squeezed my tiny body from hers
in great pain
just to have someone
to confetti with her love

who loved me
and my two sisters equally
& never pushed one of us
out the front door forever
with two packets of biscuits
for each candle on our last birthday cake
because we failed
to achieve efficiency benchmarks

who invested ten thousand hours and more dollars
into each of us
knowing we would walk away
into our own lives when ready
leaving no return at all

peek through the window
into this frost-bitten Ainslie rented room
where two lovers huddle
under a thin stained doona
watch how they anoint kisses,
caresses and compliments
upon each other
with no contract guaranteeing terms

come into this garden
witness the blessed earth
give birth to weed and wheat
pansy and potato
thistle and onion
in abandoned abundance

the real world is luminous
with molly-coddling

now, go--
design an economy
based on the reality
of mothers, lovers and humus:

study the warm soft facts

-Robin H. Davidson (reprinted with permission from Present Time , April 1997, and from the Artists' Newsletter for the Australian Re-evaluation Counseling Communities .)