Published in Overland Issue 223 Winter 2016 · Uncategorized Their talk Ouyang Yu Just around the street corner the sky heard The man say to the woman But that’s what this place is like They don’t trust friendship They don’t need it And the tree whom the two had just gone past heard The woman say They have their own people clustering around them And that’s more than enough And they don’t need any more people The street, meanwhile, let them walk the walk and talk The talk Without making a reply, exactly the way a street Behaves There were other things they talked about Such as their mutual agreement that They get used to the generally accepted cultural Segregation and their newly bred sense of aplomb And phlegm As for other things that might hurt if let out The sky, the tree and the trees, as well as the street Were willing to keep mum about So downtrodden by the wheels, the wind or the wings Like the two With no hopes of ever changing the Colour Read the rest of Overland 223 – If you liked this article, please subscribe or donate. Ouyang Yu Ouyang Yu is a poet based in Melbourne and since his first arrival in April 1991 in Australia, he has published quite a few poems. His eighth novel, All the Rivers Run South, is forthcoming with Puncher & Wattmann in 2023. More by Ouyang Yu › 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 5 November 20245 November 2024 · Reviews True dreams: Martin Edmond’s Conrad Dougal McNeill Witnessing, reading through this absorbing, elegant, careful example of the art, is always a kind of mourning, and Conrad, an author for whom writing was “the conversion of nervous force into phrases,” is the perfect figure to focus Edmond’s ongoing work of mourning. 4 November 20244 November 2024 · Palestine The incarceration of Indigenous and Palestinian children: a shared legacy of settler colonialism Sarah Abdo In Palestine, children are detained as a means of maintaining the occupation and suppressing resistance. In Australia, youth incarceration extends the legacy of forced removals and perpetuates intergenerational trauma among Indigenous communities. Children are targeted precisely because they represent the continuity and survival of their communities. This intentional disruption is not simply a matter of misguided policy but part of a broader effort to undermine Indigenous and Palestinian resilience.