echoes smack on a photograph/ show about twelve/ all standing round in their morning/ like our thoughts/ all children have to leave somewhere/ and yet fishponds reflect/ if not actual words exchanged exactly/ the same haircut/ pack that hat/ that lipstick/ she says bring me…get a tissue/ that night you were raving heads and designer dresses/ tripping over the forecast/ in the kitchen/ newspaper/ and smile but not at her/ traces of a broken puppet/ she doesn’t know what to do/ air of the dog/ his brown fur/ peace like an earthquake/ childish complaints/ smash up tiles to shop her thoughts/ one person screams at night/ the whole city screams back/ lost cars and lampposts/ snappish and empty/ sparrows with green eggshells speckled brown/ her own mother was gargling acid/ aprons, mixing bowls, wooden spoons/ cumin and cardamom/ remember the fights/ there was no one else to play/ sacrificing more than an electric car plant/ the light is a free gift and ability/ re-trace/ guarantee the next spot on the ship/ gates are open/ really open/ for all to depart/ all available data suggests this planet is hospitable to human life/ understand and ask/ understand and ask/ trigger a warning to reroute/ are you sure you want to do this?/ reveal a critical mass of light in the/ party is over/ sitting on a couch/ work to be done/ grassroots movement/ seeds in seed bank/ personal extends to the irrational
Linda Godfrey is a poet, writer, and Program Manager of Wollongong Writers Festival. An editor, series editor of microliterature anthologies, reader, manuscript assessor, judge and publicist, workshop presenter and freelance editor. Her fiction and poetry has appeared in journals, anthologies, audio anthologies and online. Linda is a fiction reader for Overland magazine and the recipient of a Varuna Longlines Residency Program and an Australian Society of Authors mentorship. She has curated Rocket Readings, readings of poetry at the Wollongong Art Gallery (part of the Sydney Writers Festival) and Viva La Gong — 2007 to 2018. Linda is a member of the Future Directions Committee of the South Coast Writers Centre, presenting the weekly literary event, Word Salad.