Published in Overland Issue 227 Winter 2017 · Uncategorized First home bile Allison Gallagher i am providing islands for a local land baron kept warm at night by investment properties dreaming of electric deeds the walls are not built to withstand harsh weather so i wrap myself in rental applications to prepare for the winter ahead accessorising with vestigial asbestoses herded into all these arbitrary divisions i watch your blood ache for something less ephemeral but oh, our bodies ground to dust by negative gears salaries having mostly sentimental value at this point i wonder what will become of the monoliths left towering over gentrified paradise these ultra-chic burial grounds now overpopulated by millennial skeletons crying silently into their superannuations Image: Homehome / Евгений макаров Read the rest of Overland 227 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Allison Gallagher Allison Gallagher is a writer from Sydney. Their debut chapbook is Parenthetical Bodies (Subbed In, 2017). Writing has appeared in Overland, Potluck, Scum Mag and Kill Your Darlings, among others. They also sing and play bass in the band Sports Bra. More by Allison Gallagher › 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 22 November 202422 November 2024 · Fiction A map of underneath Madeleine Rebbechi They had been tangled together like kelp from the age of fourteen: sunburned, electric Meg and her sidekick Ruth the dreamer, up to all manner of sinister things. So said their parents; so their teachers reported when the two girls were found down at the estuary during a school excursion, whispering to something scaly wriggling in the reeds. 21 November 202421 November 2024 · Fiction Whack-a-mole Sheila Ngọc Phạm We sit in silence a few more moments as there is no need to talk further; it is the right place to end. There is more I want to know but we had revisited enough of the horror for one day. As I stood up to thank Bác Dzũng for sharing his story, I wished I could tell him how I finally understood that Father’s prophecy would never be fulfilled.