Published in Overland Issue 232 Spring 2018 · Uncategorized Peripheral drift Zenobia Frost Turns out you can still pash in a graveyard at 28, though by now my fear of spooks has faded into a more realistic fear of people. There’s a torch in my back pocket. Her hands smell of graveyard moss and bug repellent flush with riverside humidity; mosquitoes hunt us hot and damp on the edge. Figures scuttling in the dark. Later, the sceptic tour guide explains how we interpret threats in our peripheral vision: shapes in the rear-view could be anything, but they’re probably not the undead. Right now, we’re waiting for the tour to start, deciding whether holding hands is a thing. The night this country tallied its paper yesses, that’s what we were finally saying to each other. This week was the first time someone yelled a slur from a car since I was a teenager. ‘If only people would mistake me for a boy when it’s convenient,’ she said, not taking her hands off me then, or now, even when we hear a branch crack, or blink at torches fluorescing the trunks of gum trees. Read the rest of Overland 232 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four outstanding issues for a year Zenobia Frost Zenobia Frost is a poet from Brisbane whose latest collection, After the Demolition (Cordite Books), explores pop culture, queer joy, place attachment and belonging. She recently received a Queensland Premier’s Young Publishers and Writers Award. More by Zenobia Frost › 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 6 February 2025 · open letter Open Letter from Attendees of the National Anti-Racism Symposium at the Queensland University of Technology Delegates to the National Anti-Racism Symposium We urge QUT, politicians and others receiving pressure to not only resist these attacks on the intellectual freedom and academic integrity of the presenters, Carumba Institute and QUT, but, further, to condemn the racist, reactionary and divisive campaign that produced them. Anything less will be a capitulation to the most corrosively anti-intellectual forces in Australian society, which will ultimately harm not only Carumba and QUT, but all of us. 5 February 20255 February 2025 · Art A poetic argument for restitution: Isaac Julien at the MCA Sarah Schmidt Once Again... (Statues Never Die) invites viewers to engage deeply, rewarding those willing to invest time contemplating its layered narratives. Transformative in its complexity, seductive in its visual literacy, it offers a space for empathy, education, and debate, emphasising how museums can serve as platforms for confronting contested histories and inspiring social change.
