Published in Overland Issue 245 Summer 2021 · Poetry girl Dženana Vucic I am watching her lick her blood off the floor and I am thinking: it is a marvel that the nose can lose so much and remain intact I am thinking: what is a fist a shoe a foot a book what is a belt a wooden spoon a frying pan if not a kind of missile. what is war if not everything that comes after it. I am watching her stand between me and pain and she is small but determined she is all raised chin and frown set mouth and grinding teeth and I am thinking: you cannot save anyone you cannot break suffering into even halves you cannot redirect a storm when you are living in it. I am watching her play at cheeky her tongue a momentary waggle immediately regretted as the hand rises to meet it; I am watching the laughter fall out of her cheeks and her big big eyes shudder into expectation and I am thinking: where did you learn such lightness and why did you think it could live here, with us? I am watching her body slammed against walls until she learns to turn violence pre-emptive until her fists are bruises against her thighs until the scream has gone rancid in her throat until she is the wall. I am watching her waste away grow fragile and reedy then brittle and sharp; I am watching her transform into corners and I am thinking: can you shed the past like kilos or is trying to a kind of looking away. can you look away? I am looking at the wall and listening to her in the next room and I am thinking: the neighbours will hear this and part of me wants them to and part of me is afraid and I am thinking: please, be quiet. I am watching her slice off her excess which is flesh yes but joy too frivolity wonder the upward quirk of a mouth in full bloom and I am thinking it is a marvel that a girl can lose so much and remain I am thinking what is a girl but a body a fist a mouth big big eyes and all the yearning caught in her throat. Read the rest of Overland 245 If you enjoyed this piece, buy the issue Or subscribe and receive Dženana Vucic Dženana Vucic is a Bosnian-Australian writer, poet and critic. She received a Marten Bequest, a Peter Blazey Fellowship and a Kat Muscat Fellowship to work on a book about the Bosnian war, identity, memory and un/belonging. Her writing has appeared in Sydney Review of Books, Cordite, Overland, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Australian Poetry Journal, Australian Multilingual Writing Project, Rabbit and others. She tweets at @dzenanabanana. More by Dženana Vucic › 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 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 16 February 202419 February 2024 · Poetry Two poems from 36 Ways of Writing a Vietnamese Poem Nam Le But think about the children, super cute children, mute children, with uncommonly big eyes, children with hard eyes, eyes that have seen what no child’s eyes should see, children naked as the day wearing big smiles and no smiles, preternaturally wise, with mooned-out tummies and cleft palates and cataracts, deformities and birth defects ...