Published 8 July 202215 August 2022 · Poetry / Friday Features / Friday Poetry Poetry | Chain up Angela Costi —1969, Commonwealth Building, Melbourne Zelda D’Aprano held onto the chain with the devotion of a worker who sifted through the words of bosses to find that reason to obey, she held the chain with the ease of a woman holding a handbag of unfair payslips, she held the chain with the strength of her father’s will to survive the Nazis and the drive of her mother’s hope to share our burdens. Zelda was naturally tall, but that day she towered over the twelve-storey building filled with servants padlocked by her chain to the Green Latrine of artificial light, data birthing, lift-well sinking, she became their warden of warning, locking them into their doubts, daring them to peek from their cubicles, to unbutton their stiff white-collars to use the escape door and walk down in single file with a murmur turning into a chant of Equal Pay is a Human Right as they meet Zelda holding up One Rate Only. Prometheus was chained to the mountain while Zelda chained herself both of them daring to share a necessity, equality is the ancient fire, and she too has been punished by gods using batons to bash women wearing a chain locked to the Ladies’ ‘grille’. Zelda became a photograph of one woman with stirring gaze, in smart coat and black pumps, holding the placard as one mirror to all workers – look closer she says I’m not alone, see the other me. Note: this poem commemorates the recent announcement of a statue to honour equal pay advocate Zelda D’Aprano on behalf of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Overland’s Friday Features project is supported by the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund. Angela Costi Angela Costi is on the land of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The author of five poetry collections, her most recent is An Embroidery of Old Maps and New. In 2021, City of Melbourne creative development funding is enabling her to work on a new suite of poetry with the working title: The Heart of the Advocate. More by Angela Costi › 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 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 16 February 202419 February 2024 · Poetry Two poems from 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem Nam Le But think about the children, super cute children, mute children, with uncommonly big eyes, children with hard eyes, eyes that have seen what no child’s eyes should see, children naked as the day wearing big smiles and no smiles, preternaturally wise, with mooned-out tummies and cleft palates and cataracts, deformities and birth defects ...