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 First published in Overland Issue 228 18 March 2024 · France Emmanuel Macron and the rearming of French demography Stephen Pascoe Demography, that supposedly neutral science of human statistics, is only ever one step away from politics. Especially so in France, where the national discourse over the past two months has summoned historical memory and hinted at political futures in disturbing admixture. First published in Overland Issue 228 8 March 20248 March 2024 · Poetry POETRY Gareth Morgan as if a poem were a person, me, i get up in the morning / i buy coffee in a can, and wait / you have to keep calm, “don't get upset” / or it fucks everything up. the bosses who tell me this / are wise but stupid troopers. this is a political poem