One Hand
After Chris Andrews’ Both Hands

Rain from the window is gathering on a
sill. It spills to a pool. Isthmuses. Between
my fingers fog looks like it can be possessed,
like matter that is graspable. It can never
be too soon to claim what has been neglected
(in the way landscape might be devoured, people
herded or a language cannot be spoken).
I don’t know how to go home. Until a law,
a legacy or a government stops you
in your tracks or when people choose to not understand
and continue to not understand, your will
to be reduced is reduced. No one knows; history
follows you around. Even when you’re not here
your resolve shall be left behind. For a beautiful

day to be unspoiled you need the absence
of confinement and birds taking flight. Mute your
phone, dispense with what the internet is used for.
Observe the quiet from an alone place. Ripples |
soon to be left, it may never go back to
how it was before. I cannot grasp or hold
its full reality. You will lose your hands,
they will and must fail you again and again.

**

Alison J Barton is widely published in Australian and international literary journals. Her poetry has been recognised in numerous prizes. In both 2022 and 2023, Alison’s work appeared in Best of Australian Poems. She was the inaugural winner of the 2023 University of Cambridge First Nations Writer-in-Residence Fellowship. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Not Telling, will be published this year with Puncher & Wattmann.

P76 issue 9: Poetries of place/ displacement/ diaspora/ odyssey: On-line Edition. Table of Contents