ISLAND

A magazine of excellence and variety

 

ISSN 1035-3127

We publish quality short stories, poetry, extracts from forthcoming novels, and articles and essays on topics of social, environmental and cultural significance.

ISSUE NO. 118

Spring 2009

POETRY

GILLIAN TELFORD

Archetype

their heads find the earth
like truffle hounds, scenting

their feet are set wide
with a squaring of rumps

their knuckles are swollen
in fingers of patience

that move through the soil
with the rhythm of seasons

they’re all the old neighbours
we’ve passed in their gardens

all the old women
we’ve watched from a train

they’re the black-clad wives
lifting potatoes

the brown-seamed villagers
sifting through stone

they bend from the waist
but make no obeisance

they live by the wisdom
they’ve stored in their joints

and when you reach down
to show me a flower

for the first time I see –
that’s the way you now bend

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GILLIAN TELFORD lives in Pearl Beach. Her poetry has been published regularly in journals and anthologies and her first collection, Moments of Perfect Poise, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2008.

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Ross Donlon

With her

and at last she comes to bed
the blue nightie
caught below her knees
and as she bends – like a girl picking flowers –
her breast moves with the movement down
her hair falls to one side

there’s a scent of rose and jasmine
and her night-cream glows
as she switches off the light
and climbs towards me
while I wait in my singlet and skin
with a useless book and glasses

nearly sixty
yet we slide beneath the sheet
like children slipping beneath the first wave of summer
and it’s she who turns  first
to fold her hair before it’s caught
as I turn to hold her
my palm floating across her back
pausing then stroking again – like soothing something young and wild
shifting her thigh across mine
kissing her lips like a kiss before sleep
when it’s really hello how are you tonight?
as she sighs and says
this is nice
and our bodies move together
like an answer

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ROSS DONLON lives in Castlemaine, Victoria, where he teaches writing and convenes a monthly poetry reading. Tightrope Horizon (Five Islands Press New Poets) was published in 2003. His work has been broadcast on radio and recorded for the CD, You Have Been Chosen. He is the Varuna Dorothy Hewett Flagship Fellow for 2009

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Last modified: 16 October, 2009
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