St Clair

by Clare Roche

​She arrives pink and screaming into
a town that sits snug where the earth
meets its end where
 
alpine ridges sparkle white in summer and
flightless birds screech their outrage at
probable extinction while albatrosses stretch
 
like long white clouds across iron skies.
 
I take her wrapped still pink still screaming out into
the southern gales that whip the sea
to egg white foam where
 
glossy seals surf beside black rubbered teens and
tree sized kelp clings to the shells of hulls
that wash unbidden to shore
 
while I watch the snow fall like grains of sand
upon the beach and I walk and walk
 
breathing in her smell, alone with fear and joy.

Clare Roche lives in Inner West Sydney on Wangal and Gadigal land. Her poetry has been published in Dwell Time (UK), Leopardskins and Lime (Berlin), Uppagus (US) and HOOT (US forthcoming). Her creative non-fiction was short-listed for the Nillumbik Prize for Contemporary Writing (2020).