The Weather in My Head

by Natalie D-Napoleon

The weather in my head says
a storm is coming,
the headache switch is on again.
Dust rain sweeps down
over the cabbages in the field -
little heads curl at the edge, like
books discarded, unread.
The cabbages wait to be rid
of the white moths, dots of eyes
on each wing unblinking at us think-
ing animals. As a child
I used to swat the moths with
my hands, white dust puffing
into the air, a magical game of
fairy-powder-chase, delighted
to extinguish lives.
 
I go to Farmer’s Market,
buy an organic cabbage,
peel back layers and layers
of leaves, a few ragged
punctures here and there. When I think
about it, the weather in my head can be
calm, too, sometimes crystalline, blue.
Maybe my headaches are a longing?
Memories left on a patch of dirt,
cabbage leaves scattered
like discarded moth-eaten
book pages in an unploughed field.

Natalie D-Napoleon is a writer, singer-songwriter and educator from Fremantle, Australia. Her writing has appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, Westerly, Griffith Review, and The Australian (Review). She has won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize (2018) and KSP Poetry Prize (2019). Ginninderra Press released her debut poetry collection First Blood in 2019.