he asks to see each pill I take, a catalogue
blue|green and yellow|pink|tangerine
each one a promise, a spell: make my mother well

we lie on my bed and watch the birds, eyes leaf-green
somewhere between autumn and spring
I can’t move he cries I cry when he asks mama, did I break you?

I hang stones from my neck, he weighs them in his palm
whispers selenite feldspar quartz,
mineral compensation for an empty womb

my disappointment soothing as worn prayer beads
it’s his I kneel before, water daily;
the whetstone on which I sharpen my pain

now there’s nothing left to believe
just the scrat scrat of a wattlebird in the tree
sky the colour of my favourite old jeans—

I used to think that the world owed me.

This prize is made possible with the support of the Malcolm Robertson Foundation

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