collected prose
Meeting the water again
in LITRO
"Our kind came from the sea. Webbed hands gripped the smoothed rock. The softened wood of the pier fractured in our fingers. Our taut forearms were strong from life beneath. We dragged our blue-tinged bodies up, scaled – or perhaps furred, with algae – shaking tangled kelp from our hair. And in our blood, the song that drags a man to his grave.
So my mother told me. And her mother told her. It’s just a story. But that doesn’t stop me listening for the lapping of waves in my pulse, just the same."
Salami Week
in the evening standard
"Start with the pig. Skin split, arms and legs tied together. Butchered body, Glad-wrapped, carried home in the back of the ute. Normally, Nonno carries the carcass up over a shoulder in a way that screams accident waiting to happen. Say nothing because it’s a man’s job. 'This pig,' Nonno will say, 'Best pig.'"
Where there's bread is my country
in the mechanics institute review
"It all started yesterday, with the burning. Smoke rose in great plumes overhead as the men took to the fields with torches. They tied handkerchiefs over noses and lips; sweat rained down from their foreheads.... If he can endure it, a man can start again with a few good years in the fields. A man can cut his way into a life of his own dreaming. Someday, Big John thinks, but not yet."