The smell of Jasmine

Through white fibro walls

Hiding Dad’s double brick Dreaming

Pedestal fans wearing dust cardigans

Click click click behind Mum’s door

Moaning aircons in lounge room windows

With frames painted shut

Drown out subwoofers

And fully sick burn outs

Two light brown kids

Sunscreen greased and

Melting on summer pavement

Public pool gobstoppers with

Wet paper bags and

Chlorine bleached hair

Cicada shell brooches

Nan’s voice kitchen-knife sharp

Through the warm syrup of the day:

Get down off the bloody tree

You’ll break your bloody arm

Chicken pocked skin

And oven mitt hands

Turn the dial on

Ancient brown box tellies

Spider web mesh of

Shrieking screen doors

Swing faster than Rottweilers down the road

When they haven’t been fed

Biting at your heels

Salting chubby cheeks

Those light brown kids with

Scab adorned knees

Painted with mercurochrome flowers

Stringing buttons on thread

Little fingers pricked with pins and

Mouths full of condensed milk

That’ll put proper fat on ya bones

Nan’s voice butterfly hushed

Through the brittle chill of the morning:

Don’t tell ya bloody mum

She’ll ring my bloody neck

Read the rest of Overland 242

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