Published in Overland Issue 226 Autumn 2017 · Uncategorized Switch Omar Sakr my heart is a nude bulb. Or is it my cock? Both muscles are small & hard. Blink often, or at least wear protection, I repeated but you refused. Said light made all days a Pollock painting, spotted colours running each other over. You cupped the fluttering red of it made shadowed animals dance along my ribcage with your hands. I was dizzy beneath the beasts you made of me. Sometimes I let loose language that shot across our skins, erecting our hairs. Other times silence arrived in the mail, it popped out of phones, leaked from fanged sockets. I dribbled it in my sleep. I tried turning everything off, tried to find you in the dark & in the hush see your small muscles burst electric. Image: ‘City ribcage’ / Cydarianna Read the rest of Overland 226 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Omar Sakr Omar Sakr is the author of two acclaimed poetry collections, These Wild Houses (Cordite, 2017) and The Lost Arabs (UQP, 2019) which won the 2020 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry. His debut novel, Son of Sin (2022) is out now. More by Omar Sakr › 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 25 May 2026 · The university Behind Craven’s audit Jeff Sparrow In November 2025, when antisemitism envoy Jillian Segal announced that Emeritus Professor Greg Craven would head what she called the “University Report Card Project”, the media referred to her plan as an “audit” of higher education’s response to antisemitism. It was never anything of the kind. 22 May 2026 · Friday Poetry Judas goats Caitlin Maling Because goats can climb / and cave, clamber to find cover / in the bushes of what they can’t eat / which isn’t much.
