Xmas in Brissie

Happy festive season, everyone! Please enjoy my sad weird poem about Xmas in Brisbane’s ridiculous heat.

The true meaning of Xmas in Brissie:

[Image description: picture of an Australian beach decorated with illustrations of a sun, cherries and holly. A poem is written over the top of the image:

The true meaning of Xmas in Brissie:

  • The beach, with its recurring applications of
    sunscreen, so your skin feels sticky and sea-
    serpent-slick, your cheeks fever-
    warm, your hair sea-salt-crisp.
  • The deli slices of turkey and ham, rolled-up
    and sweating on a paper plate adorned
    with plastic holly.
  • Your relos singing raucously to songs about
    snow, while you hoard ice down your shirt
    and the gullies of your body become
    swamp-like and dripping.
  • Your cousins playing in the blow-up pool filled
    with ice water. You dip your feet in and drink
    chilled white wine, hoping to delay heat-
    induced nausea.
  • Grazing on leftovers from the fridge for days,
    cherries sitting wrinkled and abandoned
    in the crisper.
  • Back home, a moth jitters in through your
    open window. It abruptly gets sucked in, shredded and
    spat out by the rusting 10 buck Kmart fan
    whirring beside your bed.]

Poem: Her Wedding Ring

Her Wedding Ring

I clench my muscles.
With squelch and grunt
it clangs,
circling into the bowl.
Crouching on cool bathroom
tiles, I dip my arm into dull
yellow water, hold it in my hand
for a moment, remember
your fingers slipping and curling
into me. I towel off the ring

and place it in an envelope,
which I leave in your letterbox.

An hour later your texts: HE KNOWS
HE FUCKING KNOWS
and I imagine your fingers
sliding against the tears
that splatter your phone screen.

This poem was first published in Woolf Pack issue #7. You can buy the issue here.