1 | TEN YEARS
ten years on, i cannot remember the
song of summer in my twenty-first year
nor the conversations i had with my
mum when she was in winter, nor the name
of the cat – fluffy, white and fat – that came
begging for food at the window of our
share house, but with the vivid clarity
of knowing my own name, i remember
the softness of the ivory shag rug
where you arranged my thighs around your ears
and made me fly. fourteen hours before
you contorted my no into a yes,
you gave me the finest fuck of my life.
2 | BLOOD
there is blood rushing in my ears
as you huff hot against my neck.
goosebumps rising, stomach twisting,
i want to turn my insides out.
you croon soft malice, and although
there is blood rushing in my ears,
i hear you roaring like thunder.
It’s good, you say, it’s so good it’s —
awful, i cry, unbearable.
sticky skin, your stale coffee breath.
there is blood rushing in my ears
and you cannot hear it, for yours
runs into that profane missile
between my legs. it pulses sins
that i will scrub from myself while
there is blood rushing in my ears.
3 | ANGER
gumtrees
like broccoli
sprout tall from my ribcage.
inside, the noisy cockatoo
gang shrieks.
i am
of the dirt where
things grow wild and feral
and birds sound murderous saying
hello.
here, the
birds are timid.
i stay away from trees,
lest my rage become a bio-
hazard.
4 | TELLING
really, it wasn’t anything, i insist,
a misunderstanding was all. he meets my vigorous
protestations with steel rage, misdirected, and
exclaims how wrong I am.
5 | DOMINION
a friend of mine
used to tell her boyfriend
that she wouldn’t mind
if he needed sex and
took it
while she was on
the cusp of sleep.
but need
turned into want
and the cusp
became the bottom
of the well.
filled to the brim
with high-minded hubris,
i used to swear i’d never
let someone
have dominion over
my kingdom.
but letting
turned into
enduring
and my kingdom
became a prison.
i forgot, you see,
that dominion
is not a two-way street.
he set up home
in a land where
he was unwelcome
and i wished i could
slip into sleep.
6 | BACKLASH
I was there.
I felt the wrath
of The Three Morrígna.
I heard the screeching crow
above my body’s battlefield.
It was the bane of men.
Now, the men screech back
from a land of paved red dust
half a world away.
The crow sits above a courthouse
and watches as the men
screech and screech.
The sovereignty of woman
is debated by a nation.
7 | I AM COMING BACK TO LIFE
When I’m having a shower
and the sunset’s light is shining through
the glass to set the water aglow,
like my body is being
blessed by the sun herself.
When I am watching a movie
made with little more than a film camera
and the best intentions of the people
on the other side of my screen.
When I am at a cabaret
and nothing is sacred
except the knowledge that we are
collectively being led
in a dizzying dance of love
and glamour and pizazz
and impropriety.
When the season turns in April
and the tree across the street
turns red as the lipstick I
paint on during winter.
When my cat, black in the shade,
chocolate brown in the sun,
flops onto her back with a
long and dramatic trill
and rests her head on my thigh.
When I read poetry
written by a friend and,
breathless, I wonder how so much
talent can exist in the world
without people screaming about it.
When I’m reading a book
and I look up at the page count
and it is in triple digits because
there are no glitches in the
mainframe of my body today.
When the rain has finished falling
and the smell of the eucalypts in the park
is a thick perfume
and the maggie is warbling
with jumping feathers at her throat.
her gleaming eyes are made of
ninety million year old amber.
This collection was originally published on my old writing blog.
ellen mac 
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