Published in Overland Issue 248 Spring 2022 · Poetry Poetry | Noble rot Georgia Rose Phillips At night, the outline of the lake changes, the street hunches around the park as fruit bats click past like frenzied metronomes— most nights, I’m in Montmartre; the gully of your navel grazing above me, shadows collapsing, paint unpeeling. Or, the musty barn-house in Altstadt— your shoulder blades cutting through the darkness like a shark fin, hay stacks brighter than sauternes. A global pandemic has happened since you happening. A whole other monument to life, resurrected. They say a new world war is starting, that tomorrow has never been less certain, and normal is forever-gone. Only now can I write that desire melted the snow and stopped the blizzard. Or, that when you finally left, I paced from corner to corner of this sad city, with no end in mind and watched the sun rise into the embarrassment of people fleeing the terror of those who’ve loved them. Georgia Rose Phillips Georgia Rose Phillips is a PhD Candidate and a sessional academic in the Creative Writing program at the University of New South Wales. Her debut novel, The Bearcat, is forthcoming with Picador in 2024, and she is at work on her second novel. In 2018, her creative non-fiction novella, Holocene, was runner-up for the Scribe Nonfiction Literary Prize. In 2021, her short story ‘New Balance’ was a fiction winner in the Ultimo Literary Prize. In 2022, her short story ‘Beyond the Marram Grass’ was a shortlisted finalist in the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies Prize. More by Georgia Rose Phillips › 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 1 11 April 202511 April 2025 · Poetry Final results of the 2024 Judith Wright Poetry Prize Editorial team Overland, the judges and the Malcolm Robertson Foundation are thrilled to announce the final results of the 2024 Judith Wright Poetry Prize. 4 April 20254 April 2025 · Poetry Water music Gary Catalano Even now / its black waters / are tanked ’nd / safely intact. Pour / seeds or syllables / back down that throat / and all you’ll hear / are scattered ping-pings / on an iron roof.