Published in Overland Issue Poetry in Lockdown · Poetry Sky updates / blue platform Emily Stewart chain of events against family cold snap foreign investment scratched up car heavy bass toothache serious motive any other secrets? willing or unwilling thumb print the public body breath common flex time ‘spent’ throw it away here on in sun parses everything open question going for broke and at that age embarrassed wind corridor big ask wattle imprimatur tit for tat article what feels easy poem with sand in it writing a poem in the sand scratchy threat on read retrofitting the story stars and stripes project timeline filling a glass at the sink Holocene flush margin char-grilled pineapple shed talk press play please inbox still available checking in ventriloquism quid pro quo Sussan knitwear image of the liver pay for parking daily trope towel, rope, brick thirty minutes expert antibody pleasantries/pleats soft package tentative touch fabric static counter-clockwise blowing up 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 Emily Stewart Emily Stewart is a poet and freelance editor based in Sydney. More by Emily Stewart › 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 September 202312 September 2023 · Poetry Poetry | Games Heather Taylor-Johnson Days pinch and lately I’ve noticed every time I look in the mirror I’m squinting—maybe it’s a grimace. Without trying I’ve mastered the façade of a Besser block threatened by a mallet, by which I mean maybe the world won’t kill me but it’ll definitely hurt and I’ve got to be ready. First published in Overland Issue 228 31 August 20236 September 2023 · Poetry Verbing the apocalypse: Alison Croggon’s Rilke Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne ‘This again?’ and ‘why now? Why not years ago?’ are the two questions raised in each new translation of a non-English piece of Western Canon. There’s an understanding—of course a poetic cycle like the Duino Elegies is incomplete in English, there are endless new readings—and a simultaneous sense of wounded pride/suspicion: what was missing the last time around? What were you concealing from me? What are you concealing now?