The valve of the heart bends forward over the bones
of the hill.
This is how air carves the earth
to claim a place it can hold.
The long face of rock finally
bearing the body the worn profile
of what the air knows
it cannot have.
Last year our phone calls
punctuated
the silence
less and less.
How can you be so far now
I can’t call?
Your breath
heavier than stone.
Feature image: ‘Intimacy and solitude’ by Jenny Pollak
Jenny Pollak has been a full time artist for most of her life, focusing her arts practice in photography, sculpture and video installation. In 2012 she began a poetry practice and has since been shortlisted for various poetry prizes, including the ACU Poetry prize, the Adrien Abbott Prize, the NUW Fair Australia Prize, the Philip Bacon Ekphrasis Award, the Bridport Poetry Prize, the Dermot Healey Poetry Prize, the Fish Poetry Prize, and the O’bheal Five Words Poetry Prize. In 2013 she was placed third in the inaugural ACU Poetry Prize, and in 2015 and 2016 (respectively) she won the Yeats Poetry Prize and the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been published in Meanjin, Cordite, the Australian Poetry Journal, the Stilts journal, and various anthologies, including the Grieve Anthology, Australian Love Poems (Inkermann & Blunt), and Australian Award Winning Writing 2017. A collaboration with the UK poet Philip Gross resulted in the publication of Shadowplay (a 62 stanza poem) by Flarestack Poets (UK) in 2018. To see more from Jenny visit her website.