Three Poems
First published in A ( ) Zine 2020
Wish Chip
It was in your half-hearted treehouse
where you taught me what a wish
chip was and how to make sure
your wish always comes true. We gutted
silver packets of thin-cut chips inside
out, dug for ones curled over
on themselves. These are special
ones, you said. Why? I asked as I held
a fat one flat on my palm
It’s funny-looking, isn’t it? Like a happy
accident, you said. You’ll know when
you bite down and hear that magic crunch
It will rattle in your skull as your wish
comes true and dissolves on your tongue
You told me the key is to not let it touch
the sides of your mouth when you tuck
it in past your teeth. If it does, your wish
dies like an insect in your throat and will never
come true. Placed one on my tongue
and listened for the magic. I can’t tell
you what I wished for but I can still
hear it caught dead in my throat.
Bottom Feeder
Wynnum-Manly Esplanade
Do you remember his face
like a fish hook snagged on
a pinky finger? We couldn’t look
away from him, a pufferfish
who oozed and prickled poison
onto her apron every Christmas
His breath against her cheek
sharp as an oyster sliced
into your foot from a jetty jump
Do you remember how
he stuffed his face with all the best
seafood at every family reunion?
How we’d frown at his greedy
guts guzzling yellow prawn
heads like a gull and hoped
he would slither back down
to the ocean floor, to trade places
with a man who didn’t binge
all the best seafood, who lugged
it home in huge blue buckets, split
it open and cooked for his family
whose face was not a fish
hook but an open palm holding
a tiger prawn, freshly peeled.
Porch Light
for Matt | inspired by a Shaun Tan short story
Most nights we still leave
the porch light on for you,
to draw you home
in the middle of the night
—some summer while we’re all
asleep upstairs. You’ll leave
oily footprints on Mum’s nice
carpet, dive straight for left
-overs in stuffed belly
of the fridge: beer-battered
fish and starchy chips, one
last slice of half-crushed
lemon and wet scabs of tartare
sauce. You’ll pick at the brown paper
bag like a gull, pull apart calamari
rings as you sink to kitchen tiles
behind counter. Maybe you won’t care
to nuke it in our microwave, leave
salt wherever your hands roam, clog
sink with volcanic black sand, shed
rusty fish hooks like lemon seeds
in our key bowl. I hear them rattle
like bone chimes sometimes. Please
don’t forget to switch off the light
when you flutter up to the spare
room. We wouldn’t want to leave
anybody else waiting.
