Published in Overland Issue 227 Winter 2017 · Uncategorized River of crumbs Sumudu Samarawickrama They are eating the photographs Because there is no bread The photographs proliferate Your excavated back looks suspended we are looking down on you And you are caught on the crumbs of buildings we are standing on that which stood on you The space between the crumbled parts of which you are a part exists For your ashen powdered self is Dimensional and recognisable I lifted a city off your face My little ash-boy My little dust-puppet Of concrete grey and dusted edifices Your black eyes are curious Your toes are lifelike Your black eyes are liquid Your cheeks curve like apples Your black eyes are alive As we try not to see Image: Damascus / Игорь М Read the rest of Overland 227 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Sumudu Samarawickrama Sumudu Samarawickrama was born in Sri Lanka though she’s never lived there. She is an emerging writer currently part of Footscray Community Arts Centre’s West Writer’s Group. More by Sumudu Samarawickrama › 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 11 October 2024 · Friday Fiction How we know the forest’s name Jamil Badi The clouds lean upon the night with threat of a storm but I do not let them break. Yes, I am thirsty for rain, my barked fingers pruned a dry and brittle grey, but I make the clouds wait. A pair of them, boy and girl, he tracing his fingers along my bones, she kicking the leaves of my dead hair. I tell the storm to wait, for I can sense a story in these two, and there is no better thing to quench the throat than story. 9 October 2024 · History Public housing can only be won through struggle Chris Dite The Hands Off Melbourne’s Estates campaign's organisation, unity, and tactics defeated ten years ago a less extreme version of what Jacinta Allan’s government is implementing today. It’s worth asking how it did so, and whether shifts in the political terrain over the past decade mean such victories are now out of reach.
