So-long the old sweet dreams of night breath now trapped in chest-locked-tight all corset-robed and body-probed she swallows back the dread … taste bitter-burning-fear and haunting the terror in her gut forewarning memories on her body etched on fear the terror fed, and on slaved-foot she fled. Foreboding bush all charred-dark-deep magnetic moon on valleys steep strange shadows trick-torment and menace light … crouched in fear her hands clutch throat to silence screams that gag her choke all body-soaked and worn she braves the night. Hunters haunting creeping near they mouth her name so she can hear her blood it throbs-pumps-pounds explodes her heart … she digs the earth and lies down deep but they smell sweet-fear and hear her weep and night-winds whip her scent to gift the dark. Invisible and silent tears from states-of-nothing she appears then to shadows black-damp-cold she returns … she panics darts from tree to tree can’t think can’t hear can’t cry can’t see but for the memory of her sister’s touch she mourns. To her ancestors she prays she cries to free her mind which terrifies to her heavy-heart be gentle and her shame obliterate … she dreams her journey toward a place not brutal bruised or disgraced but sorrow etched so deep such memories make; this postcolonial haunting in her wake.

A response to r e a’s work PolesApart – Tracking, 2011 – single-channel video [7mins] reworked from the original PolesApart series, 2009. This new work in progress was created for the Stop(the)Gap/Mind(the)gap: International Indigenous art in motion, 2011, exhibition where r e a’s work was projected onto Heart’s Mill in Port Adelaide.