Published in Overland Issue 252 Spring 2023 · Poetry I live in my hometown (not a hundred metres from where) Emma Simington A flower called SELFHEAL, in Latin begins GROSSE, meaning course. All afternoons: cross-legged, elbows crushing, blood cut off from that point down. Sticky implements snicking vintage lithographs and silenced pistols from graphic novels. It turns out I write books by cutting them up. Unforgetting sexual molestations is done with long-lost Zooper Dooper scissors. Plum flowers from 1955 on a finger-dragged, white wall some feet from Cruelty’s yard. When I grow up, I’ll take to chalking the drive like the last time I saw her face / privates. By the time I’m ready to die SNOWBELLED BUCKTHORNED SELFHEALED you’ll be able to purchase me in markets, right by basil descended from my mother’s second crop and slim bouquets of Fife-gathered FORGET ME NOTS. Emma Simington Emma Simington is a poet living on unceded Yugambeh country. Her words can be found between the pages of The Moth Magazine and Australian Poetry. She has shortlisted for the Helen Ann Bell Poetry Bequest Award and the Thomas Shapcott Prize. Emma loves women, coffee and lemon pepper tuna. It is proud to be neurodivergent and transgender. More by Emma Simington › 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 6 November 20246 November 2024 · Poetry TV Times Kate Lilley I try out for Can Can after school / knowing I’m not cut out for the high kicks / Ballads chansons show tunes ok / I can belt out Judy Garland and all the songs from Oliver / “Who Will Buy”/”As Long as He Needs Me” / Wher-e-e-e-ere is love 25 October 20244 November 2024 · Poetry Phar Lap Ender Başkan we have a horse in our shed dad look dad me and gabe are feeding him grass he likes grass he eats grass and chaff dad gabe said his name is phar lap dad come on phar lap! i got some grass for yooooou!
