21 October 202230 October 2022 Poetry / Friday Poetry Poetry | Class act Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn When iso’s over I’m buying a coleslaw handfuls of nectarines, vanilla pudding to keep the lockdown woes at bay, I’m kinda worried not rly because I’ve got the spicy cough you know, I’m young – no underlying conditions but my brother has spent the past week in emergency iatrogenic—antipsychotic blips and static when our dad did that too many times they told him eventually to fuck off and he did for good The ambulance schedules haven’t gotten much better since then nursing red-eye on rotation overworked underpaid care workers, single digit sleep cycles I watch my phone fill up with outrage pre-programmed algorithms performative justice No1 can decide who we pile onto next it’s the little things they’ll get you for on Twitter ‘her boobs titted around breastily’ @TheSmollestCat I wish my door closed properly from the men who came to pay a visit to my grandmother, well she’s 83 can’t move without a walker but no one cares much when she screams in the night except my upstairs neighbour who rings me in social housing people invite you for coffee food drops, sometimes for other things too I’m kinda worried for my mum she’s been kicked out of houso for punching her neighbour’s window in when the guy next door he’s yelling there’s a woman at this place who kinda reminds me of her methadone gleam in her eyes, ex nurse wonder tits flyaway hair she keyed someone’s car and she cut nan’s umbrella tree muscling the gutters but she has these frozen blue eyes like opal jewels wrested from brown dirt when I’m walking down the street her eyes freeze on me her mouth curves, childish lips, the ones that called the cops but I just smile coz I’m chicken shit white you never know it just might save my arse, the scraggly hibiscus in the garden. I might just get lucky It’s the little things / secret daydreams (She comes in, I say Cheryl, choke me out and she sits on my face) In reality I’m swiping right thinking it’s left I’ve got my face on tinder help it’s the same refrain: Hello hello hello hello hello hello how are you? Gotta keep it close and personal for social media they’ll never give me a book deal – all I’ve got are editors with avos yes AVOs not avocados million dollar inheritances working class heroes all. It’s a class act baby! Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss ‘when I got this award I was living in a housing commission area’ babe why didn’t you come say hello? We’re your neighbours, we don’t bite (hard) but what do I expect from feminism what good old J Gil did on the same day she told Abbott to fuck off was the day she cut the single parent benefit my mother’s still living in a tent I guess it’s all a sham sham wow LIFE ads make life more enticing I guess I should’ve been more grateful for the opportunity geriatric television screens play tinnitus on standby sticky mopheads buzz like flytraps, scented candles, Ajax spray and wipe rinse away the dust and wrinkles blips and static Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn is a young writer and the nonfiction editor at Voiceworks magazine. Her writing has recently appeared in Kill Your Darlings, Going Down Swinging, Rabbit Poetry, Island and others. In 2018 she won the Scribe Nonfiction Prize. More by Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn 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