I eat my learning all up; except maths. I mash it into my potatoes,
paste it under the table. I am eight. I hold all the cards.
I will sit there all night. I will never climb down.
Dad lets me go to bed.
He is forty-five, and working too hard.
He is arguing with the teacher. He is only about five.
He has been at it for hours, howling.
You are Uncle Charlie. You are the oldest and you can’t stand it.
You grab him and take off. You say, Wherever Garth was,
there was trouble.
I am four. Dad says he might have to belt me
if I don’t stop. I say, Your pants will fall down.
I have all the answers.
I do what I like.
The weather flashes. Frost crusted on the branches.
You are my Uncle Charlie, with a hard blue stare.
Hello, you say, with your joke: Where’s my stock-whip?
I hide in the chook shed.
You are my brother. You are the boy; just as well you like shooting.
If I am sixteen, you must be twelve. If I have Dad’s twelve-bore,
you have your own four-ten. We’re down the reserve
for scenic birds. Dad teaches us how to give them a lead—
like, at least a foot if they’re going flat out.
We are gorgeous with glee, we sneak so quiet.
I am six. I am standing gingerly behind our first pony.
Get right in close, he says. Bastards can’t kick you so hard
if they can’t get a swing at you.
I am sixteen. You are seventeen.
You are the best rider and you are my sister.
You have to put up with me all the time.
I can’t have everything my own way,
my mother says. I am bewildered.
You are my grandmother.
You live by yourself in the big house.
Mum must be thirty-three, if Dad is forty-seven.
She is always in the middle. I am the middle child,
I carry messages on behalf to my father.
He is a very private man.
He is the Lone Ranger.
He has a silver mare, she can turn on a sixpence;
he rides the range in shocking weather. I go too.
I am afflicted with loyalty all my life.
On Black Friday he lets me ride her,
she gets caught in wires. Whoa! I yell, Whoa!
She kicks and kicks till she flays off all her skin.
Wood in my throat, some imaginary hand on the small of my back
and push, there I go through the woolshed door.
Oh my God, you say, Oh my God.
She doesn’t die, no, she keeps her silver scars.
The patch on your back can never be touched.
You are Gug, you are Edward, my uncle.
For Courage.
I am seven. I stare at your trousers.
If I never see the sea again, you say, that’ll be too bloody soon for me.
If you get another bloody horse book out from library
Dad says, I’ll throw it in the fire. I am eleven. He smokes
and reads Jeeves or Somerset Maugham.
I am twenty-five. You were sixty-two. People say, it’s far too young.
You are my cousin Barbara, you say, He was such a good man.
Red hearts in the trees. Light glaring in.
You are my brother. Winters, you are sick; the rain deliberately falls.
Dad brings you a train set. Electric tension, he struggles with instructions.
Flashes and smoke.
You’re eight and I’m twelve. He sees the Jehovahs on the drive.
Fuck, he says, Go and tell them we’re Catholics.
God swishing in the bushes.
You are Barbara, you are only little, and he won’t answer.
He grins. He is thirty-three.
Grandma said I had to give something up for Lent.
I couldn’t give up smoking and I couldn’t give up swearing
so I bloody-well gave up talking.
She’s never forgotten it.
You arrive late, you’re over eighty
and I don’t know you. You are a townie.
If you’re going to eat it, Grandad says, you learn to kill it.
Throat cutting.
We girls aren’t allowed in the killing shed. Not till it’s gutted
and hung and the head in the creek.
We are to ride away.
Ride right down the road when they dynamite the trees.
We don’t go far, we get a good view; it hangs in the air
like the ashtray and sand we blew up in the house
with a Mighty Cannon.
Dad’s revolver wrapped in a towel
in the second drawer down. We are not allowed.
Gug has a revolver and a Luger he took from a soldier.
We use it to shoot birds in the orchard and he doesn’t come too.
The trees are white with nerves.
Uncle Charlie is eighty-seven. Who’s that girl? He says, I know her,
touching the photo of his sister, Gwen.
Rain slick on the windows, vaseline lights winking from the far land.
You are Gwen. You are eighty-one, and you sigh,
All those beautiful letters he wrote
They just faded away.
I kept them long after the only word you could read was Garth.
Smoke drifting down from the distant sky.
Dad used to run off all the time. Take off across the paddocks.
You always thought Granny was a big woman, but by hell she could run.
Mossy. Watching.
Go, dog, go.
- 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