Telling Will
A galaxy of paper moons floats above us
………..lanterns casting soft light on our entrees.
………..………..I’m guiding a pea flower dumpling
on chopsticks into my mouth, biting the carved
………..purple pastry to the burst of peanut
………………….and black vinegar, when you ask me.
Telling you about my father is not on the menu.
………..A mother-son night—eating Pad See Ew,
………………….drinking Singha at Chon Thai.
We’re talking about your work at The Pier, ………..
………..how you love to pull the perfect brew,
………..………..the money you’re saving.
I’m thinking about how you have matured. ………..
………..You don’t have to tell me. Your words arrive
………..………..from another place. Rehearsed,
careful, feeling their way through the dark.
………..I’ve practised this moment too. Telling you.
………………….Absent family always present.
On the next table, a young woman’s face is lit ………..
………..by a sudden blaze of birthday candles,
………..………..on a coconut pandan cake.
And I tell you about him. You listen, walk around
………..to my chair, hold me. She covers her mouth
………..………..with both hands in surprise.
**
Ghosts
At the back of my father’s shed was a large leather case stored next to some tea chests. I played there often, on the cool floor, making a dog bed from ribbons of wood shavings. The case had always been there, near my grandfather’s saxophone and a set of pianola rolls. Rusted locks snapped up like a jack-in-the-box. Smell of camphor and old paper—that feeling in my stomach, like I had stolen loose change from a drawer. A bundle of letters rested on a deep pile of photographs. Faces swished around my fingers.
Later, my sister told me the tale of two families—each lost a parent. Two widows met, married and made a new family. I can’t remember what my father said when I showed him a picture of the man with a moustache leaning against a jet fighter. And when I asked about the pretty woman with soft rolls of hair framing her face, I only recall my mother’s lips, frozen in a red line.
**
Onion
When I fry onion and push the pearly dice around the pan,
……….I think of my mother.
The peeling and chopping are done, it’s the beginning
……….of something good—shepherd’s pie served warm.
Oil and butter loosen and mix in the pan, gilding each piece
……….like a pungent star.
Amid the hiss and spit of crushed garlic, I remember
……….my mother lifting down
the pressure cooker, always someone to feed—home early,
……….home late. I’d watch her pour split peas,
lay down a pink ham hock in boiling stock. I’d wait
……….for the noisy rattle to rise and rise
until the cat flattened its ears and the safety valve shrilled.
……….Now I hear music when I cook. My mother’s music.
Tonight, it’s Hoagy Carmichael. Stirring onion, singing Skylark,
……….I feel the ache of those songs
and the years we didn’t speak. I think of our phone call
……….this morning—the usual news, a fresh recipe shared.
I push diced onion around the pan until it softens
……….and turns gold.
**
Ulysses Butterfly
I don’t remember how we began⎯
two pearls glued to a misted leaf,
among ribbonwood and fern,
away from quick tongued geckos,
the prying antennae of katydids.
Our blue-winged mothers,
chose a Euodia tree, a tender nursery
for fat caterpillars. Solemn call
of emerald doves tiwooing secrets
through our waxen shells.
Other butterflies flickered
shadows outside our eggs,
sipped ginger flowers in the heat.
A kaleidoscope of jezebels,
wingspans wide as the sun.
The rupture⎯our green and yellow
grub bodies. Spikes dressed our backs,
spoke poison to the shrike thrush.
Mandibles munching leaf.
Our hunger. O the hunger!
Do you remember the silence of silk?
The quiet cool of chrysalis.
After spinning, hanging upside down
like small green fruit. Time ceased
and we dreamed of wings.
You flew first. Frantic gem.
Rapid darting blue,
long black tails lifting high
into the canopy of a Kauri.
Light spilled from basket ferns.
I don’t remember days passing,
our closing wings at dusk,
huddled on a bough of satin ash.
Nor the glow of ghost fungi,
slow moss mending earth.
You, I will remember⎯
looping grace through tangled vines,
drawn by pink bursts on branches.
We rest on candied tendrils,
taste flowers with our feet.
**
Origin
I begin in the slow press of my father’s foot
……….upon a pedal, as he glides his dull green Holden
……….……….to the bottom of Curzon Hill.
Beside a picket fence garlanded with hedges
……….of mock orange, he spies you, a slender widow
……….……….in black capri pants and ballet flats.
An Audrey Hepburn mirage⎯O those cheekbones⎯
……….the small hands of your daughters hold yours,
……….……….as you wait for a lift.
How many times did he squeeze the brakes
……….before inviting you to dinner? What if
……….……….he’d turned the corner at Brett Street?
What if he hadn’t served you tinned soup and a chicken
……….from Mr Pickles the grocer, if he hadn’t taken you
……….……….to the Great Northern for Chateaubriand,
if he hadn’t introduced you to his motherless daughters
……….(how your heart ached for them), if he hadn’t
……….……….asked you to marry him three times,
if he hadn’t booked the cathedral before he proposed,
……….if you hadn’t caved in (your words, not mine),
……….……….if he wasn’t so goddamned charming?
You wouldn’t have worn that beaded dress, a chiffon turban
……….that caught drifts of confetti. You would never, ever,
……….……….have agreed to another baby.
This morning when the nurse left your room, you told me
……….you wish you had left him. I brushed your white hair,
……….……….grateful you didn’t.
Alison Gorman is a poet and creative writing teacher who lives and writes on Garigal and Worimi country. A Woman Talks to Her Tongue is her debut poetry collection. Her poetry has appeared in Cordite, Island, Honest Ulsterman, Meanjin, Mslexia, Popshot Quarterly, Southerly and Southword. She was awarded a Varuna Residential Fellowship in 2023. Her poems have been shortlisted in the 2024 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, the Bridport Poetry Prize, the Fish Poetry Prize and the Mslexia Poetry Competition. Her pamphlet was highly commended in the 2024 Mslexia Pamphlet Competition, shortlisted in the Cinnamon Press Literature Awards the same year, and was a finalist in the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition in 2022. When Alison is not writing poetry, she teaches creative writing to children at Inkling Writing Studio, which she founded in 2018.
Rochford Street Review 