JO LANGDON

Jo Langdon is a literary studies PhD candidate at Deakin University,
Geelong (Victoria, Australia). Her published fiction and poetry includes
work in Mascara Literary Review, Wet Ink, Page Seventeen and Voiceworks.

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Bird dreams

The air is grained with light
& you step through it

past the quince tree strung
with prehistoric fruit.

Somewhere hidden,
insects click their metal wings.

It is the house that calls you
back:

a small staircase beneath
porcelain bells of wisteria

where afternoon's peach-coloured
light leaves a sunbed for the cat

seashelled in sleep & hiding
bird dreams.






Jetty

Day:

Girls who refused to swim
for Phys Ed class

are chasing screams
into the water

again & again,
feet thundering the planks,

the moony glitter
of their toenail polish

caught by light.


Night:

Beneath the boards, smooth
like dry bones

small breaks of water
lick every surface.

The city lights & horizon
of chimneys

bright & liquid in their
imitation

breaking, mending.






Zoo

Here the light leaves you,
& slowly

snow is coming down
sideways to the street.

You have been written out
of small histories

& now want to talk
about zoo animals in winter.

In the Tiergarten, a wallaby
still in falling snow

its small, dense body hiding
warmth

& what you would have made
of this
with someone to tell.

Air alters at dusk; mountains
darken, shift nearer to
the sun.

The light leaves you here.

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