Fetish of a gull’s bones
magicked into the dune’s
morning face
light, hollow, honeycombed
when I rest it intact
on the paten
of my palm, unprepared
for the swirl of thought
as shells still
arrive in the frothy
skirts of a building tide,
the beach
a smooth femur of memory
that exists beyond this
short blink of
fickleness. Bird skull, esoteric
circles of continuity in sky:
a pale malevolence.
From the photograph of my
grandmother on this
beach, I have
no doubt she ponders these
enigmas, perched rigid,
hair tied severe
in a scarf, dark glasses; the
young girl oblivious
beside her to
the sea’s charming mercury —
all of us thriving and
foxing at the
same time in a relentless
sepia of air and sand,
flight, feathers,
partly excavated smiles, old
spells written only in
wind-etched runes.
Jane Frank is a Brisbane poet inspired by discoveries of the surreal in the everyday and in the historical – unusual juxtapositions – that also draws on her interest, and earlier qualifications, in art history. Her work has most recently been published in Not Very Quiet, Algebra of Owls, The Poets’ Republic, the ‘’truth’ and ‘romance’ editions of Popshot and a strong and beautiful anthology of short fiction and poetry by, and about, women called Heroines (Neo Perennial Press 2018).