Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

Marlin

by
April 2021, no. 430

Marlin

by
April 2021, no. 430

A boy appears at school early
to lick the flagpole and speak different.
Scratch the ‘g’ from ‘listening’

like the girl he watches
hang her beaded bag
from the hook with all the grace he doesn’t know

he heaps upon her.
At recess, the boy eats a golden delicious,
seed and stem. Each instant a northswept

southerner in Nonna’s stories, losing dialect.
Kids jigsaw around him; he stays still
faster than they do. The sun sinks

into its resin.
Seven bells. The girl he watches untense
her hand, as if she almost

imitates a marlin, but stops herself –
how does she stop herself? Why

does he see her at her bag
rubbing lanolin cream from a white jar
on the webbing between fingers that understand him now?

This shared language must be rung in.
At lunch, the boy scrapes a beetle off a wattle bush

and fills his ear. Screeches
down the canal, barbed
legs pricking towards the drum.

You May Also Like

Leave a comment

If you are an ABR subscriber, you will need to sign in to post a comment.

If you have forgotten your sign in details, or if you receive an error message when trying to submit your comment, please email your comment (and the name of the article to which it relates) to ABR Comments. We will review your comment and, subject to approval, we will post it under your name.

Please note that all comments must be approved by ABR and comply with our Terms & Conditions.