—Here
come in under the tablecloth with me,
trefoil and dandelion spur. You,
soft-bladed violet and humming sting-
less native bee, slip inside too.Beneath this humid hum-
an penumbra
this green
is itself already anthropic: a baseRelief, a carpeted maquette,
a hillside coaster slipped
between these jotted greyscale dwellings
and nature’s marrow, one
crewcut lawn at a time, one tiled
drive, one retaining wall, one storm drain.
Until there intervenesA single small domain
of lion’s tooth unfettered and canker-wort,
monk’s head, witch-gowan and pissenlit,
of flaxen cities crowned
on globose pinheads.
Whose is it? Who is itWho fails the test of suburban
propriety so completely?
Here he is, tethered,
shifting from phenomen-
ology to pharmacopoiesis
on this circuit, askingHis phone what calamity
might befall the dog if he eats this this-
tle, his eyes
stretched taut across our infrastructure’s tensile skin:
flora, macadam, detritus,skeleton pipes and orchards,
conduits, clotting lipids.
We have remade this world
even the parts
we don’t think of as ours,We don’t stay out
of the valley
below Richmond
even if we seem to leave it to the black snakes,
the burnweed and the jacaranda.
But listen:To the water
outwitting our sentences
one beachfront patio at a time.
To the sand in cosmic teaspoons
besetting our waterholes and gas tanks.To the sounds
gone ahead unheard on a dead world or
one with red sky only &
small things plotting,
abiding, or departing
in the soil the soughAnd sizzle of small rocks against
larger ones, no pennants
for the wind ’s teeth to comb
upon this airless hillside, how would.
You describeThis hexapod orchestra
its oboed saws and fricatives,
its grassy shawms & sighs
expelled from occluded orifices and faces
to one who never had such as ears?Here we made the rocks that cried
and unmade them—
remember?
We are figmentsOf the earth’s slow changes,
we pareidolias of the continents’ subductive
self-erasures: they shiver.
Stretch their backs
with the thought of us.
We are oil
for something’s futureAnd then the world,
a pit picked clean
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones