Published in Overland Issue 215 Winter 2014 · Uncategorized Castrato Michelle Cahill When the kitten with a dislocated limb is euthanised, you’ve stopped reading my blog, my sister refuses the call, a bargirl on the south side of Sydney is being shagged, when every contract is optional, the ping-pong game is over, the flat day reeks of a stinking premonition on the pretext of afternoon teacake, vanilla-iced, served with the luminous smiles of a stay-at-home mum to reprise me of the stakes I’ve gambled, make-up too bright, or remind me falciparum malaria hooks up to maggots glossing the trash heaps on Manus Island, page 6 – when the slush pile of supplier statements, invoices, failure-to-pays I’ve ignored becomes a pylon, having clocked up as many as twelve angry men who’d expect equality and dignity are unconditional? When I’ve almost crossed the desert hallucinating Lasseter’s cave, with a parasitic strangle when poetry raids every layer of self-respect so I can no longer read newsprint, let alone the opening sentence of my tenth surplus draft, syllable by syllable – I’ll start over like a teenage boy with secret admirers in the back seat of his mother’s 4WD, learning to curse before my voice breaks for the first time. Michelle Cahill Michelle Cahill is a Sydney writer. Her short story collection, Letter to Pessoa, won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for New Writing. She has received prizes in poetry and fiction. More by Michelle Cahill › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays First published in Overland Issue 228 18 March 2024 · France Emmanuel Macron and the rearming of French demography Stephen Pascoe Demography, that supposedly neutral science of human statistics, is only ever one step away from politics. Especially so in France, where the national discourse over the past two months has summoned historical memory and hinted at political futures in disturbing admixture. First published in Overland Issue 228 8 March 20248 March 2024 · Poetry POETRY Gareth Morgan as if a poem were a person, me, i get up in the morning / i buy coffee in a can, and wait / you have to keep calm, “don't get upset” / or it fucks everything up. the bosses who tell me this / are wise but stupid troopers. this is a political poem