Accessibility Tools

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

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Fear' by Amy Brown

by
States of Poetry Victoria - Series One

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Fear' by Amy Brown

by
States of Poetry Victoria - Series One

The university plovers are fat and silent,
'toe-walking' across lightly frosted lawn
so as not to wake whatever invertebrate
is breakfast. At home they are scrawny,
caught up in shrieking war with pukeko.

Until I moved to Melbourne I maintained
my ornithophobia, which became impractical
in a place with murders of crows on most
corners. So, I decided to love their oil-
spill plumage and dinosaur gait, the way

they wait on pedestrian crossing signs
providing a third alternative to red and green.
Stop, go, or flap black and blue to the lip
of a rubbish bin and spit out cigarette
butts mistaken for cold chips. Swallow fear.

 

Extract from Our Effects

Amy Brown

From the New Issue

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.