Now we are living
through the Memoir Mesozoic.
How many socialists will turn up
to tape the goon sack back to the chandelier?
How many offshore havens
will it take to build a heaven?
We call to each other as we drift on the current.
We are each so loud, it’s impossible to hear.
In case you missed me:
I am waiting for you
on the banks of this pile of rubbish. As it floats
from continent to continent, my allegiance shifts
like the colours on a squid. Make me out. Make out
with me. Tell me what we make together. On my own
I am best seen from a distance: a conglomeration of dust
precocious enough to clog up a suit.
Together we make – what? –
a kind of weather. Look at the clouds
puff at the moon, turn into rain,
and give themselves up to drink.
I want something bigger than me
to hook us, line
by line, through
the throat.
Pip Smith is a SMH Best Young Novelist of 2018 for her first novel, Half Wild. Her first poetry collection, Too Close for Comfort, won the inaugural Helen Anne Bell poetry award, and she once wrote a poem every day of summer for The Lifted Brow’s website. Her first children’s book, Theodore the Unsure, is forthcoming through Scholastic.