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From: Vol.01 N.02 – Making way for other kind

Sable Island Horses

by Siobhan Hodge

I am not an ocean narrative. My feet

are fingernail-soft, long hair

and wide gaze tangledrawn

to shifting tides that rip

and rail against the sand.

 

Sea-horse, island-bound

my carousel horizon

draws shipwrecks, lung

foam. Desperation echoes,

rebounds my own expulsion.

 

Sand and salt forced familiar,

my tongue grows stern

on sea-grass. Thickening fog

bars guests who would wring

copper or coal from our bodies.

 

Weedy morass, short-stumping

this newbred hide grips

all Atlantic spray. Pendent swing

of ice shies fetlocks upon

the slopes. Agency through exile.

 

We are our own.

Storm plains flex narrow dunes

to claim marrow. Cold bones

sink to sea, where we need

no hand to steer us home.

Published: July 2014
Siobhan Hodge

is a doctoral candidate at the University of Western Australia, studying Sappho’s poetry and its translation. She divides her time between Australia, Hong Kong and the UK. She recently published a chapbook, Picking Up the Pieces, and has had poetry published in several places, including Cordite and Peril.

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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