Published in Overland Issue Poetry in Lockdown · Poetry Cemeteries on google earth - a suite of poems Panda Wong bukit brown, singapore like several edible birds inserted forcibly into a holiday turducken the city intrudes if you turn a cemetery upside down it looks like the middle of a city like a skyscraper[1] we have buried too many bodies now they must make way for motorways carparks supermarkets colonoscopy practices flotation therapy centres pilates studios dog grooming salons overflowing with perfect poodles yapping in perfect unison the death of a death leaves a hole[2] writing a poem feels like digging a hole with yr bare hands when you have very little upper body strength to speak of yr manicure breaks tiny pathetic half-moons lying in the dirt and then you get rained on by acid rain bc it’s 2020 and the world is not healing itself and a perfect poodle a grooming salon escapee pisses on u its hot steaming piss running down yr leg and you fall back down into the hole and you cut into the hole and the hole is a piece of cake whole foods on east houston st, new york they said all this pain will be important one day but what if the pain is buried in a graveyard but what if there are no guests at the burial but what if the graveyard gets paved over but what if the graveyard becomes a whole foods but what if they put up ads that say life without pasta is not worth living what if they put up ads that say whatever makes you whole what tho when people say whole foods I see vultures circling a sky burial when I say whole foods you say vulture! whole foods! vulture! whole foods! vulture! once I saw a couple break up in the whole foods food court. she was eating a quinoa salad that looked like a trichophobic’s nightmare, he was weeping into his hot bar selection there was a dot of quinoa quivering on her lip and a congealed smudge of slop on his cheek and the pain was not important the pain was just a circling vulture the pain was just something on yr face san michele, venice every silky morning I leave a dent in my beautiful pillow in this life I had my hopes and schemes practiced daily how to be the good meat took delicate foot pics like a non-wannabe anna delvey dreamed abt lavish burial in a floating venetian cemetery rode horses in expensive jeans and got expensive thigh chafe lounged in deckchairs like a divorcee who has scored the big divorce bucks green juice in one claw, fuck-off vodka in the other it is a beautiful life and it will be taken away pearls flushing down a toilet bowl and yes, this body is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and yes, I’m wasting it like sheets of silk spoiling on a clothesline in the sticky wind the world presses in blurred outline permanent imprint relentless life [1] Dr Julie Rugg, Cemetery Research Group [2] Please Bury Me In This by Allison Benis White Read the rest of Poetry in Lockdown, edited by Toby Fitch and Melody Paloma If you enjoyed this special edition, subscribe and receive a year’s worth of print issues, the online magazine, special editions and discounted entry to our literary competitions Panda Wong Panda is a poet working on unceded land in Naarm/so-called Melbourne. She is an Associate Editor at The Suburban Review and is a 2020 Wheeler Centre Hot Desk fellow. More by Panda Wong › 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 3 November 20233 November 2023 · Poetry our neighbours poem Ender Başkan our neighbours face appears above the fence – hello. our neighbours have a chat with us. our neighbours learn our names. our neighbours become our friends. our neighbours landlord thinks the market is ripe. our neighbours are told to leave. our neighbours try to buy their house at an exorbitant price to keep their kids in the school zone. our neighbours are denied. First published in Overland Issue 228 25 October 202325 October 2023 · Poetry The inhabitants Elif Sezen I died today, among many others, my grandpa died too, and our neighbours, / my best friend, the one with braided hair yes, and our sweet sweet doctors, / our motherly nurses... We heard a blast, then a whoosh of some kind, / and all gone.