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