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 20 May 202620 May 2026 · Reviews Are you experienced? Louis Armand Pam Brown’s poetry has been described as both conversational and deeply layered, its historical consciousness seemingly belied by a fragmentary, diaristic style. An easy comparison might be drawn with the work of her long-time friend Ken Bolton, which often achieves a sense of over-arching unity of vision expressed in monologue form. Bolton’s work can appear exhaustive — long prose-like stanzas — where Brown’s seems to flicker down the page like dawn through the mangroves on the drive to Cronulla. 18 May 202618 May 2026 · Militarisation Sacrificed for the Pentagon: on Australia’s “security” crisis Gwenaël Velge The connection between the Jarrah Forest, the submarine base, and the data centres is not metaphorical. It is the three pillars of AUKUS, made material in a single city. Pillar III strips the forest to supply aluminium and gallium to the other two pillars, gutting environmental and water security.
