Published in Overland Issue 224 Spring 2016 · Uncategorized Gods of my youth Caitlin Maling At night we leave the colony to go to the ballet: Balanchine, mixed repertoire, Tchaikovsky. It’s American Girl Night and the girls in pigtails and gingham carry dolls in pigtails and gingham, blondes with blondes, brunettes with brunettes. On stage the corps dances the garlands, such unison, such unison, while with poise and grace back in Perth my sister slowly bleeds out the last of what would’ve been a baby and at intermission I text her. On stage the man lifts the woman above his head the girls and the dolls gasp and sigh and I hear my country roar inside me. It’s important to have control. Caitlin Maling Caitlin Maling is a WA poet whose first collection, Conversations I’ve Never Had, was published in 2015. A follow-up collection is due in 2017. More by Caitlin Maling › 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 19 April 2024 · Friday Fiction Stilted J.E “Mahal” Cuya One hour after midnight. Everyone in rooms. Living room – dark. Table look like monsters. Like death. TV on stand. Netflix Logo. No one watching. Residents asleep. They have dementia. 18 April 202418 April 2024 · Education A Jellyfish government in NSW: public education’s privatisation-by-neglect Dan Hogan A private school that receives public money is not a private school: it is a fee-paying public school. The overfunding of private schools using public money is a symptom of a public service that has been rotted for a quarter of century by a political class with no vision beyond producing dubious, misleading statistics to deploy at the next election.
