She said she came from Portland
where the ashen skies, leaden ocean
Left her like the local boys
barren of emotion
As we talked, we watched the raindrops
running down the window
The laundromat in Darlinghurst
like a fish shop from the past

And her mother called her Mary
After Mary Magdalene
To deny her beauty would have been the greatest sin
It was a profile in the neon
And a Kings Cross Doorway lean
to half an hour of tending
Someone else's tangled dream

And there were lines of sailors, lines of speed
lines upon the foot path where she stared
When things were quiet
as night deferred to dawn
And the coke cups played red rover
in the breeze that scuttled through the streets
Taxis left for greener fields
while Sydney stretched and yawned

And her mother called her Mary
After Mary Magdalene
There were virgins in the morning, she had sisters in the pain
And the wives would clutch their husbands
Perhaps they shared the shame
'Cause working streets and wedding rings
Are sometimes much the same.

She tap-danced with the buskers
near the subway shouting blues songs
They remembered
from their teenage years of dreamtime radio
And the years withdrew behind her eyes
to let the little girl look out
In simple childish innocence
at drawings in the sand.

And her mother called her Mary
After Mary Magdalene
She had long dark hair and massage oil and a key to let you in
And the lines upon her face were maps of roads she'd travelled lined with
People throwing stones 'cause they didn't understand
that a half an hour of tenderness
Perhaps they shared the shame
'Cause working streets and Weddings rings
Are sometimes much the same.