Discovering Govett's Leap 
is like discovering the back beaches 
of Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay. 
I pick my way, heart in mouth, along the paths, 
drinking a stubbie of beer, looking like a slut. 
A butterfly from a weeties packet keeps me company. 

You think you've seen it all, 
but there's always so much still to see. 
It's Christmas day, but who's counting? 

My father says, "Couldn't you find yourself 
a partner for Christmas?" 
like it's a dance or something. 

His youngest daughter, 
a wallflower, an old maid at 33. 
"Better drive me to the church, Dad," 
I say at my brother's second wedding, 
"It'll be the only chance you get." 
They don't understand the joke. 
They're still hoping. 

On grand final day Warrick makes me 
ring my father because Hawthorn wins. 
"Did they cry in your day, Dad?" I ask. 
"Well, yeah. Some of the blokes would cry, 
if they thought they'd played a bad game, 
or if the coach had gone off at them." 
He sounds misty-eyed just thinking about it. 
This was not what I was expecting. 
(I take out my pen and make some notes.) 

In the pub I watch the little boy 
standing beside his father, 
a loud-mouthed Eagles supporter, 
following every move out the corner of his eyes 
while he pretends to watch the tv. 
"Car'n the Eagles!" says the father. 
"CAR'N THE EAGLES!" says the son, jumping madly. 

I feel sorry for him as the Eagles gradually lose 
and his father sinks more and more into abusive drunken 
depression. (How do you mimic that when you're ten 
years old?) 
But I feel more sorry for my father. 
What happened? 
Out of six kids you'd think even one of us might've 
spent part of our childhood standing by his chair like 
that, 
watching, hoping. 
But none of us did, ever. 
We went to church. We barracked for Collingwood. 

I watch the little girl wander about the lounge, 
pretending to put coins 
into an invisible cigarette machine 
and bound back triumphant. 
She sidles quietly up to her father and he 
puts his arm around her absently. 
She picks something delicately off his ear lobe, 
hesitates just a second, then puts it in her mouth. 
"Your mother wears gym boots!" yells her father, 
cupping his hand to his mouth like he's at the game. 
The six people in the room ignore him. 
There is a ripple of excitement amongst the 
(hitherto silent) Hawthorn supporters as the Hawks 
begin to take control and the Eagles start to die. 

This is a backwards poem, an unreliable/selective-memory poem. 
But aren't they all? (Your poem vs my poem..) 
In the car going to the game I say to Colin, 
"Am I aggressive?" 

Warrick's already at the pub, 
because he fell asleep in the garden and woke up cranky 
(how was I to know? Most normal people sleep with their 
eyes closed.) Colin says, 
"Well." 
He pauses. I wait. 
"Not .. re-ally!" 

He draws the word out long and 
apologetically. 
Oh god! Even Colin thinks I'm aggressive! 
"For a woman, perhaps," he says quickly. 
"Your more aggressive than any other woman I know." 

I sink meekly into my driving seat. Crestfallen. 
(Except that females aren't supposed to have crests.) 

"It's only men who ever complain about it," I say. 
(I think I say it quietly, my little wren voice, 
but if Warrick were here we'd probably fight about 
this.) 
"Exactly!" says Colin, and I feel a bit better. 

After all, wrens don't hurt anybody, do they! 
(Only worms.) 

I let myself get tipsy on two middies in the pub and 
forget about driving and forget to keep pulling my 
skirt down 
over my stocking tops. Who cares? All the men here 
are married anyway. One of them (although not legally) 
to my best friend. Seen all that before. 

Warrick says, "You're a feminist, 
but your sense of humour saves you." 
(Sigh.) 
I introduce him to strangers: 
"Warrick's terribly conservative, but 
his sense of humour saves him" 
and watch his eyes widen in shock and outrage. 

I ring my Dad from a phone box 
while he waits in the car, 
his soft white jumper a beacon in the dark. 
We take the cliff path home 
and as I drive round the bends 
he refuses to wear a seat belt and 
leans in over me as we try to work out 
where we are. 

There is a culture clash 
going on here and I'm caught in the midst of it. 
If I could get a powerful enough telescope 
maybe I could look back and see where it all 
started but someone knees me in the back 
and I fall on my face in the mud. 

I look around to see who it was, 
but all I can see is my father and brothers 
and Warrick and they're all on the same team, 
and I'm losing; and it's not even half time. 

What can I do? 
I pull my skirt down, and try to salvage 
my dignity 
as I walk off the field.