Published in Overland Issue 227 Winter 2017 · Uncategorized River of crumbs Sumudu Samarawickrama They are eating the photographs Because there is no bread The photographs proliferate Your excavated back looks suspended we are looking down on you And you are caught on the crumbs of buildings we are standing on that which stood on you The space between the crumbled parts of which you are a part exists For your ashen powdered self is Dimensional and recognisable I lifted a city off your face My little ash-boy My little dust-puppet Of concrete grey and dusted edifices Your black eyes are curious Your toes are lifelike Your black eyes are liquid Your cheeks curve like apples Your black eyes are alive As we try not to see Image: Damascus / Игорь М Read the rest of Overland 227 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Sumudu Samarawickrama Sumudu Samarawickrama was born in Sri Lanka though she’s never lived there. She is an emerging writer currently part of Footscray Community Arts Centre’s West Writer’s Group. More by Sumudu Samarawickrama › 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.