My father’s house squats on the edge of the valley, half way up the side of a formation that’s too big to be a hill and too small to be a mountain, facing the snow-capped ridge on the opposite side. Grass is coarse and brown, always, and in the distance, it makes the hills look golden.
    Kangaroos settle under the arched branches of an old oak that sits awkwardly among gums and rugged bush. I watch them surreptitiously from the...

My father’s house squats on the edge of the valley, half way up the side of a formation that’s too big to be a hill and too small to be a mountain, facing the snow-capped ridge on the opposite side. Grass is coarse and brown, always, and in the distance, it makes the hills look golden.
    Kangaroos settle under the arched branches of an old oak that sits awkwardly among gums and rugged bush. I watch them surreptitiously from the...

My father’s house squats on the edge of the valley, half way up the side of a formation that’s too big to be a hill and too small to be a mountain, facing the snow-capped ridge on the opposite side. Grass is coarse and brown, always, and in the distance, it makes the hills look golden.
    Kangaroos settle under the arched branches of an old oak that sits awkwardly among gums and rugged bush. I watch them surreptitiously from the...

Hiding in the cracks of this pulsing muscle.
That beats unsteadily on,
Is a piercing of glass shards.
With each beat I lose more blood.
 
Like a flock taken to the skies,
I am detached from the earth,
But birds fly together.
Untethered and undone,
I am a lone feather.
 
And the ache spreads like poison,
Black, threading my veins,
Hidden beneath this unbroken flesh,
A woven pattern of pain.
 
The blood drips down arm,
The claws...

A bullet in glass. Crack. Crack. Crack. Everything comes down.