Man Grow Magick

First published in Antithesis Journal Vol 30: “Mental” 2020

I struggle to levitate out across

these horizonless mud flats

—try, try again but my legs

gravitate thigh-deep. Aerial roots prick

like gnarled fingernails and lodge

between my toes. Bog witches

are alive and kicking beneath these

rank banks; a spoonbill is snagged

beak-first in search of a bellyful

of crayfish or slippery molluscs. I’m after

something much greater: a man with a heart

the size of a coral reef, whose laughter

I’ve heard scamper like Moreton Bay

bugs against the wings of swamped

aircrafts. His eyes dart away faster

than any guppy alive. Maybe if his bones

were magicked into a toadfish or a cupped

handful of tadpoles, I might find better

luck, could watch him sprout slimy

new arms and legs in a blue ice cream

bucket like wounded starfish who relearn

how to count to five: pensively, patiently.

Until then I’m just a boy fishing for a man

—fingernails failing to find grip.