{sea-anemone}
barely inside and out, the rippling enfoldment
that adheres to your nerve-tips, that draws you
further away, abandons any comfortable reassurance{sea-breeze}
through your voice, strained to breakpoint,
hastily called upon, past your lips, parched,
cracking into bloodlines, blisters ready to weep{sea-gull}
or swoop and dive and bank and soar
or pick scaly iridescence off your blinking eyes
or steal the thoughts leaking from your bones{sea-horse}
from your memories of brothers, sisters,
babes-in-arms, collected, recollected, encased
by the thinnest of ivory, the purest of gold{sea-pen}
across the ebb, the flood, the marks circumscribing
your day-long, week-long, drift through doldrums,
your irresolute desire to be elsewhere{sea-salt}
the sweatiness of countless dock-side farewells,
the story you neglected to tell the crowds that came
and went and cheered and invariably forgot to smile{sea-serpent}
too bright for photography, too dense for dreams,
the sun, the air, the fire ablaze underwater,
while you, alone, prepared to catch the sparks{sea-shore}
a fleck of paint, screw-threads, unspliced fray,
is this some kind of clue? splinters, half-varnished oak,
was this your final hand-hold?{sea-snail}
perhaps you wished for oxygen, a raft, a tightly closed
bulkhead, instructions on which way to come about
in case of break or catastrophic failure below deck{sea-star}
what did you see, scratching for contact, before
the sky was crushed flat on its back, before
coral reefs zigged and zagged and slashed at the rain?{sea-wasp}
useless now, the oil-skins, Mae-Westers, personal
flotation devices as required under law, a buoy
engulfed with tendrils displaced in the roil{sea-weed}
only By-the-Wind-Sailors, storm-sintered glass,
one canvas shoe, barnacles, slow-darkening Sargasso,
the bells, a message unbottled, awaiting receipt
- 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