Leaving, Are You?

By | 1 August 2012
I’m not an anonymous tip-off

or the cracking up over death.

I’m not easy or the slider

on the machine, I’m not

evidence or the answering tape.

Don’t tempt me!

I’ve seen you around the courts

and terraces, I see your leaves

your turning circle

your dust, all leaves, all gone.

I’m not gone.

I’m not even ticketed.

Neither am I here.

You’ve seen me around

seen me leaving.

It wasn’t easy.

The dust bears tracks.

I was not courted.

I was not circled but

nevertheless I bore

a ticket. Bingo!

It wasn’t evidence

but a demand at the door.

And the door keeps turning

though it’s easy

easy as leaves

turning like jokers

something from the wild

side of the deck.
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Jill Jones was born in Sydney and has lived in Adelaide since 2008. Her latest book is Acrobat Music: New and Selected Poems, published in 2023. Other recent books include Wild Curious Air, winner of the 2021 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, A History Of What I’ll Become, shortlisted for the 2021 Kenneth Slessor Award and the 2022 John Bray Award, and Viva the Real, shortlisted for the 2019 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry and the 2020 John Bray Award. In 2015 she won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry for The Beautiful Anxiety. Her work is widely published in Australia and internationally and has been translated into a number of languages, including Chinese, French, Italian, Czech, Macedonian and Spanish. She currently writes and teaches freelance, and previously has worked as an academic, arts administrator, journalist, and book editor.

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