Published in Overland Issue 232 Spring 2018 · Uncategorized Peripheral drift Zenobia Frost Turns out you can still pash in a graveyard at 28, though by now my fear of spooks has faded into a more realistic fear of people. There’s a torch in my back pocket. Her hands smell of graveyard moss and bug repellent flush with riverside humidity; mosquitoes hunt us hot and damp on the edge. Figures scuttling in the dark. Later, the sceptic tour guide explains how we interpret threats in our peripheral vision: shapes in the rear-view could be anything, but they’re probably not the undead. Right now, we’re waiting for the tour to start, deciding whether holding hands is a thing. The night this country tallied its paper yesses, that’s what we were finally saying to each other. This week was the first time someone yelled a slur from a car since I was a teenager. ‘If only people would mistake me for a boy when it’s convenient,’ she said, not taking her hands off me then, or now, even when we hear a branch crack, or blink at torches fluorescing the trunks of gum trees. Read the rest of Overland 232 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Zenobia Frost Zenobia Frost is a poet from Brisbane whose latest collection, After the Demolition (Cordite Books), explores pop culture, queer joy, place attachment and belonging. She recently received a Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award. More by Zenobia Frost › 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 18 December 202418 December 2024 · Nakata Brophy Prize Dawning in the rivulet of my father’s mourning Yasmin Smith My father floats words down Toonooba each morning. They arrive to me by noon. / Nothing diminishes in his unfolding, not even the currents in midwinter June. / He narrates the sky prehistorically like a cadence cutting him into deluge. 16 December 202416 December 2024 · Palestine Learning to see in the dark Alison Martin Images can represent a splice of reality from the other side of the world, mirror truths about ourselves and our collective humanity we can hardly bear to face. But we can also use them to recognise the patterns of dehumanisation that have manifested throughout history, and prevent their awful conclusions in the present. To rewrite in real time our most shameful histories before they are re-made on the world stage and in our social media feeds.
