Cerebral Cage
For her, home was A syruped thickly of honey And that newlywedded sunhumming glow. The soju that sat oodled in pools in rings in spoken Atop the verot-black, back verot black bench, Their percussion of food and drink In drunken love with the sound of each others voice and laugh And when pregnancy test showed […]
Lockdown
It sounds as sure as the concrete echo of a closing steel door but I’ve come willingly within these resonant walls to the warmth of the kitchen to children clattering down the stairs to this chair in a pool of light to the sense of you near and as the dark descends our home encircles […]
The Christmas Ritual
We bought the star from the same store every family goes to. The star with its withered limbs, was almost dying. We took it home, slipped off the packaging that read: Real Authentic Stars, mined straight from the sky! We put on the instructional video, at 13, it was time I learnt to […]
Black Swans
The husk is broken, crackedwide open. The fourth wall betweenus andDisasters are stressful, challenging, exhaustingMeanwhile, in a comfortable house on the canal,B & G play scrabble as the rain bombs.‘OMG! You’re taking this very seriously,’ texts B.‘Maybe… It’s just that I’ve never seen the canal this high’.How high is high enough? It’s just […]
Dirty Red
When Earth’s unrest ceasedtwenty times a thousand thousand years agoher great south land stirred, split and spread,covered herself in lava spill, lay soiled stillbreathing deeply listening —Then spirit warriors woke from dreaming Bundjalung,did battle on Countryand the land bled red.Red dirt still lives in russet scarsetched in this volcanic cauldron. Its plug […]
Tide, 2022
Seagulls float backwards on the currentWhimbrels hunt on the sandbar in dips left by estuary stingraysRaptors arc overhead – now an osprey, later a sea eagle.The wind tickles the casuarinas, or do the she-oaks reach for the breeze?We laugh, drinking G&Ts on the deck.Happiness muddled with finger limes, mint and berriesLight on the blue wavesEach […]