Published in Overland Issue 232 Spring 2018 · Uncategorized Infelicity Jo Langdon Malapropos, my slow mind & mouth play cyclamen-chlamydia-Clytemnestra like a musical scale. It embarrassed you once when I only meant flowers, only then meant something of how things turn, on & against – Tender is the morning quiet, leaves gently offering their shapes open to small hands: hello. Here, gloss & flesh sudden in the glass; waves come through sails or sky; the cat turns to gull or glimpse of fox. The maiden a crone like some plain punchline. I knew this before I ever did. Image: Gabrielle Ludlow / flickr Read the rest of Overland 232 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Jo Langdon Jo Langdon writes fiction and poetry. She is the author of two poetry collections, Snowline (Whitmore Press, 2012) and Glass Life (Five Islands Press, 2018), and her recent fiction appears in journals including Griffith Review and Westerly. Jo lives on unceded Wadawarrung land in Geelong/Djillong. More by Jo Langdon › 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 28 September 202328 September 2023 · Cartoons Ban cars from the city Sam Wallman Sam Wallman makes the case for closing the streets off one by one. First published in Overland Issue 228 27 September 2023 · Sport When the sport circus comes on Country Jenny Fraser The next huckster in the carnival of sport is the upcoming 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games. If we want aspects of it to be in line with Aboriginal protocol, we need action from across the four winds of the world. If it’s not done right we need solidarity and protest just the same. We are each other’s safety net in this theatre of sport. As a senior Aboriginal woman activist once told me, ‘we are all only as good as we negotiate’.