Published in Overland Issue 230 Autumn 2018 · Uncategorized Liptrap Fiona Hile Sifting through shells I think of you— Green striped flange truncated at the stalk, singed partner variously allocated, the dusky hearing aid of secular distance enforced. Barrel leaf cloth fastidiously sewn emits apertures of admissions stored and later, distilled, through gestures confoundingly subtle. Is there material diffuse enough to feed your repertoire? You are everywhere. I am only in the hungry, lip catching south. The sun’s breath harvests modernist pinks and greys. You, the corn-rowed data of herringboned broth, a spiralling whirlwind of lust. Or this whale doll’s layette, bargain basement, discontinued. An unrecognisable mathematics reassembles. Volcanoes assemblaged stand still in place of you. Twenty-cents’ worth of quartz harbours discordant epiphanies of the last time we met. This froth of bleach, sea floral anti-freeze. Crumbs of floss. These are not my organs here on the beach. Not my liver beating, like a heart, beneath this rock. How your sand fly disappointment stings, punishments imperceptible and easy as poison. Still, I sit, and think, and think of you, elegantly innumerable. This cudgel of white bone, only two knuckles deep. Emptied of the pod of your embrace, lesions scorn. This face has a terminal array. That lip segues every Latin hook. If you could sing to lava these finite rocks, if night could carve fresh shapes from molten ash. If these excoriated shells could conjure your rough face to a schismed retreat, the world might forgive a jawbone knuckled to prism and reflect. Read the rest of Overland 230 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Fiona Hile Fiona HIle’s collection Novelties (Hunter Publishers, 2013) was awarded the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry. Her most recent book, Subtraction (Vagabond Press, 2018) won the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Award. More by Fiona Hile › 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 24 April 2024 · History Anzac Day and the half-remembered history of the Anzacs in Palestine Bill Abrahams and Lucy Honan Schools are deliberate targets for government-funded mystification about Australia’s role in wars. Such instances of official remembrance crowd out the realities of war, and the consequences of Australia’s role in imperialism. As teachers, we should strive to resist this, and we should introduce our students to a fuller understanding of the history of the Anzacs. 22 April 2024 · Gaming Game-death in infinite game-worlds: Darkest Dungeon 2 Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne Death is the ultimate stamp of value. It was invented to sell arcade-like 1 Up repetition to the home market. To read politics in videogames is to learn to read necropolitically, which is why gamers don’t like politics.