Published in Overland Issue 213 Summer 2013 · Uncategorized Wander in &/Under Stuart Cooke I wander in her woollen hat caught like object world of legs dark eyes the city becomes feeling heels click iron bent into green I know this much I am trodden by a gull’s filthy hotel a self-conscious heart this spotted elephant click I want each and one especially your flint fried in pathetic liquid a field I want especially this cold booth a skin wrapped in skin every object sex is shackle melodic current swooning over trodden by conscious spurious motors prerogatives in tend I wander her forgotten hat I dark eyes your desire under a skirt like flakes struck from flint like leathery spine flakes Stuart Cooke Stuart Cooke’s latest chapbook, Departure into Cloud, was published by Vagabond Press in 2013. His full-length collection is Edge Music (IP, 2011). He is a lecturer in creative writing and literary studies at Griffith University on the Gold Coast. More by Stuart Cooke › 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.
