Seaforth

Where Meredith’s cousin

Stephanie-Jane stabbed a man

to death on his front lawn, 
and got as far as Gosford

in a midnight-blue

Toyota Camry. 
She accumulated mass

in prison, and read scripture.
Warringah Mall

Where I bought my first

skin-tight pair of Levi’s

(low-rise, bootleg-cut).
Manly

Where I went to school and

learned to swim and

how to flirt and

how to make a bong

out of an apple. 
Where I came across

a couple making love

on the esplanade, as I

walked home alone, one

very early morning. 
Where childhood

and adolescence

were birthed and drowned,

and between rounds 
at the pub, I found

that being a woman

means learning to comfort

sad men.
Dee Why

Where, at the RSL, the day

I graduated high school, my

Economics teacher told me 
his girlfriend had hepatitis

and her piss was the colour 
of rust. He asked if I was single

and ran a cool, snake hand

up the length of my leg.
Collaroy

Where I kissed

Shona’s boyfriend

in her backyard, one

February night
—or, he kissed me,

and I let him. I worried

about hurting

his feelings.
Narrabeen

Is crawling with ghosts.
Mona Vale

Where Jesse was king-hit so

hard outside the pub one

lazy Sunday, his teeth sprayed

across the bitumen
like stars falling

against the night sky. 
Bilgola Beach

Where the streets are

serpentine, and the air is

salt. I keep having

that dream where cars

pass me walking

on the road at night.
Avalon

Where, down by the water,

by the yachts moored on the

bay, I once made love 
to a Japanese man

on a trampoline

by starlight.