Published in Overland Issue Poetry in Lockdown · Poetry October monthly Adalya Nash Hussein my friend’s face is in a pile by the counter i compulsively reach out to touch it turn it over give her some privacy to observe that this is not what is usually meant by ‘covergirl’ is on the nose it’s beside the point the point is that i miss my friend the point is i see her everywhere later i decide i should buy a copy maybe one day i will want it i go back to the bookshop but she’s not there anymore no longer the current issue when bookshops return unsold magazines they usually just send back the covers proof that the innards weren’t sold i imagine friends’ and strangers’ hands tearing off my friend’s face i imagine her collected in an office in carlton that i once went to for a job interview it’s maybe a 15-minute walk from her home i had to proofread something about bees 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 Adalya Nash Hussein Adalya Nash Hussein is a writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Voiceworks, The Lifted Brow, Ibis House, Meanjin and Going Down Swinging. She has been an Emerging Writers’ Festival Melbourne Recital Centre Writer in Residence, a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellow, and shortlisted for the Scribe Nonfiction Prize. She is the editor of Voiceworks and a co-editor at Liminal. More by Adalya Nash Hussein › 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 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 First published in Overland Issue 228 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 ...