Vanessa Page

Trophy parts.

The dismembered:

thud-echoes to

amber litter to

vanished

bright, curved hands, tumbling bright

cleaved loose from timber:

limb

by limb

milled,

framing up the south-east corner

and beyond.

Rosenstengel’s pin-up

each torso measured twice,

sawn and fashioned into function:

weighing down

the curled-up corners

of hot-box bedrooms

clinging steadfast

to dwellings of timber and tin

window joinery and panels.

Grevillea robusta

her resilience, a force

across drought seasons:

holding fast

to loam and basalt

decades before legislators

slowed axes

growing quietly,

bearing relaxed thicknesses

of honey coils,

ready for bees.

Beyond a firebreak,

appraised

by new craftsmen

oceans distant

in Larrivee’s workshops

the length of her body

worked carefully

to fine, fluid

acoustic shells:

strummed.

Vanessa Page is a Queensland poet. She has published four collections of poetry, including Confessional Box (Walleah Press) which was the winner of the 2013 Anne Elder Award. Her most recent collection Tourniquet (Walleah Press) was released in October 2018 in Brisbane. Vanessa blogs at vanessapage.wordpress.com