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From: Vol.04 N.02 – What are the animals saying?

Awks

by Toby Fitch

deep-red from rose-dirt my orchid

left the back porch with an awkward gait

headed down the swamp which it entered

 

head first open-mouthed before i could speak

it was kicking its roots like legs luring comets

to criss-cross above when two finally collided

 

the sky switched channels to static cutting

the night with a knife i gaped back down

orchid was gone in the deep-red swamp

 

were rhythmic gelatinous ripples as tho

invisible pebbles were being dropped at

perfectly repeated intervals been staring

 

into space ever since ecstatically deep

the branches stoop & the leaf-eyes dilate

searching my garden for the remote

Published: July 2017
Toby Fitch

is poetry editor for Overland. His books include Rawshock, which won the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry 2012, Jerilderies and, most recently, The Bloomin’ Notions of Other & Beau. He lives in Sydney where he also works as a bookseller and a teacher.

An Australian and international
journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics.

Plumwood Mountain Journal is created on the unceded lands of the Gadigal and Wangal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, and to elders past, present and future. We also acknowledge all traditional custodians of the lands this journal reaches.

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