acknowledges that his body
his skin will protect him
the family
of David Dungay Jr
who grieve
without justice
are interviewed
they appreciate the
air time but also ask:
‘where have you been
for the last four
and a half years’
the white host says:
‘noted’ the way
a student might
take a correction
slight word
for the weight
of corpus
that needs healing
the danger of a clot
is that it might break away
lodge in lungs
or brain
blood in the wrong shape
and place can kill
I am lucky today
my body attended
cool gel
pressed on flesh
no evidence
of deep vein mass
something else is
causing the ache
expert eyes scour
for threats beneath the skin
Emilie Collyer is a writer living in Melbourne’s west, on Wurundjeri land, where she writes across and between poetry, plays and prose. Her poetry manuscript Womanish received a 2020 Varuna Publication Introduction Fellowship with Giramondo Publishing. Award-winning and nominated plays include Super Perfect, Contest, Dream Home and The Good Girl. Emilie also works as a dramaturg and text consultant. In 2020 she is starting a PhD in creative writing at RMIT. Her writing has appeared most recently in Australian Poetry Journal, Not Very Quiet, Plumwood Mountain, Slippage Lit, Australian Poetry Anthology, Witness Performance, Cordite, Overland, and The Lifted Brow. Emilie can be found here and chatted with here.
