Poem
'Songline contraband', a new poem by Samuel Wagan Watson
by Samuel Wagan Watson •
Vale Aunty Kerry Reed-Gilbert
Long-serving Chair of the First Nations of Australia Writers Network
Authorised visits,
temporarily easing Grafton Correctional Centre blues,
a young girl walks shadow-hardened corridors to see a black inmate,
observe her little brown fingers
as wafer thin as the bars that separate them
but with pilot eyes, the only light that shines
lines across a dank cell floor
upon which an imprisoned father writes poetry,
a daughter smuggles out to be published;
highly unauthorised material,
songline contraband ...
Samuel Wagan Watson