Australian poet Jane Downing’s work has appeared in journals at home and internationally, including Meanjin, Cordite, Canberra Times, Rabbit, Not Very Quiet, Social Alternatives, Otoliths, Live Encounters, e.ratio, Last Stanza, and Best Australian Poems. Her collection, ‘When Figs Fly’ (Close-Up Books) was published in 2019. She can be found at janedowning.wordpress.com
Dashed Hopes
The blowflies are talking to me
from the window sill
sounding like a radio
badly tuned –
words fuzzed beyond meaning
resorting to a morse code
of short headlong chops
against the glass pane
the long dashes
my answering cracks
against the brick wall of the day
A Song That Never Ends
When you are Bambi’s mother
you know your death
is necessary
for the plot
which does not stop
you planning your revenge
turning your doe eyes
on the audience
for a subliminal second
brimming with remember me
to every little girl
who
growing up to be a mother
may not yet acquiesce
to the tropes of the narrative arc
