The migration patterns of Overland are well-established in my household. Released from the mailbox and torn free of its plastic sheath, the journal begins life pristine on the breakfast table. Articles that provoke the strongest reactions are soon identified by a spattering of crumbs, oats and spit; evidence that talking about the writing has proved more urgent than the breakfaster swallowing their food.

It would be exceptionally unusual, one imagines, for an emerging male author to be asked why so many of our best books are currently being written by men. And yet it would also be wrong to say that the query, asked of a female writer, is unforeseeable.

The feet were the first to break away. I put on weight quickly in the months following the fires and so my feet spread out for balance. They reverted to feet from some human prehistory, all stiff hair and hide, the toes blackening. Whose feet are these? I looked on dumbfounded as they tried to stuff themselves back into the shoes at the end of the bed. Stamping around the hotel with that Neolithic gait, the unfamiliar, cavewoman pelvis – and whose feet had I dragged out of the aftermath?

dead ground [         ] in this median season [        ] of trees ingrown [                          ] [        ] like scissors pushed [                     ]