and on wednesday i stopped eating meat. my heart big as a boulder. my address the vacant lot opposite the fish shop. some soreness in the hip & shoulder and all my gods ascending. now i think in nerves. tongue raw. like i inhaled too much sugar. shadow a shade of pine detached from the body descending. i speak in sentence scraps. to you. who knows everything. my heart smashed like a friday night car crash. i’m scared to be born again. scared to weep like the god off-loading storm clouds onto stop signs. the way metal won’t melt in the rain & look how it glistens. at last. a shotgun list. heart crabbit as my da. smashed glass eyes. bones crunchy. when i shout i break teeth. i am jealous of your corpse. your store unpacked. when i am gone who will read the story of sad to the dead who have forgotten everything. who whisper elaborate lies in foolish places. do we believe they will be sad no more. my flesh decays in a title. wait. please wait. my untame heart. then pump your remote language of sadnessing.
Caroline Reid is a poet and performer who lives, works and plays on Kaurna land. Her debut collection SIARAD (ES-Press 2020) won second prize in the UK Poetry Book Awards; her poems have been awarded the Mslexia Prize, Woollahra Literary Award and highly commended in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. Story, humour and a whiff or rage is at the heart of all her art. www.carolinereidwrites.com.