1 October 202110 November 2021 Poetry / Friday Poetry / Friday Features Poetry | To sleep in a strange place Sam Morley 1. in a corner of the dark he paces lickety-split arms stiff to his sides hands flat out fidgeting it is definitely not ballet he spins a few circles then claims he needs to pee I pull him close to breathe and breathe until he finds a groove in the liquid gloom the heartbeats loosen into something at ease and holding five fingers wide I run an index up and down the skin coaxing a little Buddha and I speak mantras so my youngest might lasso his runaway self we talk of how the night beaches in holiday homes and if you close your eyes the blackness can somehow be your own type of tar I say count the sheep leap the fence time to be ready prone to the dusk braver now he says Dad stay close make enough sound so it’s not just me and silence 2. under the cloak of this house he calls but never for me all night gun barrel dreams make him sound round notes and I become the far off rain clotted cries ripple the night’s barn fending off some floor stripped away in that moment no longer a father only a bubble loom croon a hollow fur flying by a clink of chains in the darkness a hinge opening on a home Overland’s Friday Features project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. Sam Morley Sam Morley is an emerging poet living in Melbourne. His work has been published by Cordite Poetry Review, Red Room Poetry, Hunter Writer’s Centre and shortlisted in the ACU Poetry Prize 2020. More by Sam Morley 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 3 March 20233 March 2023 Poetry Poetry | 2 rat poems by joanne burns joanne burns the courtyard rat squatting on an empire of pizza boxes rainsoaked piles of stewing cardboard flattened packaging from long covid's eager merchandise anything to transcend an unimagined plague rat traps line the walls like doctors' obsolete portmanteaux from a much earlier decade First published in Overland Issue 228 10 February 202322 February 2023 Poetry Poetry | Inflorescence Jo Langdon History or myth—picture tulip bulbs, unburied like onions. An onion is the likeness Hepburn—in Gardens of the world—proffers in the purr & lilt of vowel, halt of consonant; annunciation that lifts ready from memory