I wrote lines during a period of insanity, too


after Gig Ryan

Flung them on the riverbed which flooded
that week next. Not short of invectives, I cursed
pebbles as flint, startling the public of Wagga
Caravan Park like a goanna loosed under leaves.
What rot, said some, and I did believe them –
with the brute finality of a gum limb
struck down for brooms. Good-bye seventh sister,
with your holy plaintive wings. Good-bye this
underdress of drenched silk

Dear accomplice, I can’t stand this ratio.
The timbre of lunatic meets. Let us choose
a better mooring for slugging bottles next;
let us be less regretful. When did time start
angling in, so diagrammatic, so anodyne?
I hunker with a slew of digressions, mostly
physical, layabouts, greying husks,
what-have-yous. This night of nights
features one darling wedding then the next:
a blouse and blooms revue, or
instances awaiting a long car trip home
where I’ll couch tomorrow’s ache as somehow edifying

Emily Stewart

Emily Stewart is a poet and freelance editor based in Sydney.

More by Emily Stewart ›

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