Published in Overland Issue 235 Winter 2019 Uncategorized Walis tingting Ivy Alvarez take a coconut palm leaf pinnate in shape flat with a spine strip the green away and you’re left with a whip which at speed can cut skin for punishment gather the leaves then gather the spines bind with weaving through another thin thing for sweeping concrete sand and earth today it is my job to clear the threshold dirt mixed with sweat like worms in the fold of my elbow blacken under nails rime my neck I sweep and the broom says sh sh sh for ten minutes in a day I say nothing let my broom speak for me Filipino idiom meaning thin as a rod (literally, palm leaf broom) Image: Vincent van Zalinge on Unsplash Read the rest of Overland 235 If you enjoyed this poem, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive four brilliant issues for a year Ivy Alvarez Ivy Alvarez’s collections include The Everyday English Dictionary (Paekakariki Press), Disturbance (Seren Books), and Mortal (Red Morning Press), with Diaspora, Vol. L forthcoming in 2019. Born in the Philippines, her work is widely published, anthologised and translated. She lives in New Zealand. More by Ivy Alvarez 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 6 February 20236 February 2023 Aboriginal Australia Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali: listen, hear, think, understand from our sacred Mother Earth and our Water Winaga-li Gunimaa Gali Collective To winaga-li, Gomeroi/Kamilaroi people must be able to access Gunimaa. They must be able to connect and re-connect. Over 160 years of colonisation has privileged intensive agriculture, grazing and heavily extractive water management regimes, enabled by imposed property regimes and governance systems. Gunimaa and Gali still experience the violent repercussions of these processes, including current climate changes which are exacerbating impacts, as droughts become longer, floods and heat extremes become more intense, and climatic zones shift, impacting on species’ viability and biodiversity. 2 First published in Overland Issue 228 3 February 20233 February 2023 Fiction Fiction | Romeo and Juliet II: Haunted rentals Georgia Symons The hauntings are actually quite flamboyant here, though. Yeah, come in, come in. Not like my friend Moya’s house—it just has a tool shed that sometimes isn’t there and that’s it. So boring. Yes, you can keep your shoes on.
