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From: Vol.03 N.02 – Decolonisation and Geopoethics

Quarter acre

by Alice Allan

We pay for heat, help love

wash, vacuum and surrender.

 

All I want to know is

why is this my problem?

 

No junk mail. No hawkers.

Do not ring bell. My children call.

 

We work hard.

We deserve.

 

Whatever the mountains

look like from the air—

if they’re icing sugar

or creamy teeth

 

I just don’t

need to know.

 

I measure safety

in the span between sirens

 

and in the distance

a scream carries.

 

What happens next

is

 

the motherly daphne

by the front door

 

spills her scent to the man

with the leaflets in the pram.

 

I just don’t

need to know

why its petals

look like teeth.

Published: July 2016
Alice Allan

Alice Allan’s poetry and reviews have been published in previous issues of Plumwood Mountain as well as in Cordite, Rabbit and Australian Book Review. She also records the weekly podcast Poetry Says.

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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