Tide
A collection of poetry and fiction from the Faculty of Creative Arts' creative writing program
Starting Over
Jessica and I loved to play with worms when we were kids. We’d pluck the fat ones from our dad’s award-winning worm farm and allow them to infiltrate the mud pies we molded into ice-cream tubs and then baked in the sun....
East of Westerbine
Toby fumbled through the stack of envelopes in his leather pouch as Mr Jessop Cole waited, arms folded across his wide chest. Toby remained just outside the yard of the Cole property, his knees bent awkwardly as he leaned back to catch his pouch upon his belly....
The lover’s promise
love had come to rest below my window and i resolved myself to let him in — for he looked ragged and wild , well in need of the rum i offered ( a slick inch of urine in the tumbler , neat — my own with a squeeze of lemon ) also there was the matter of the dove whose heart i had recently come to acquire....
Degustation
My husband’s tiny, a baby, compared to me. He wasn’t even born when I had my first kiss. Even stranger, he’s short and thin and round-cheeked. He can’t grow a moustache. He sleeps curled around himself like a foetus: tiny and gilled. When we have sex he’s a desperate sucking mouth, greedy hands.....
Kung fu, lies and videotape
JOHN AND ANNE’S LOUNGEROOM – DAY
ANNE is cleaning an immaculate room. A knock sounds. Anne opens the front door partway to.....
Absolution
The sky is a baptismal font.
The people of Cronulla
offer up hand massages to the Lord.....
12 o'clock sky
It was only after dying that I realised I had all these blank pages left over. My face was still pale and smooth then. I had never bothered to grow any lines or to smile. I didn’t think to create those little tracks or worlds inside me—the kind you take with you when you die. .....
The ocean knows this
Bridget Lutherborrow
1
Your skin more yellow
where I can’t see it,
face like plasticine
your mouth
a hollow carved out for sound—
a cave on the beach
empty, but I
can hear
water in it.
2
Pale
curled over:
as the tip
of a young
fern frond
rubbing your
toes pink
with your
hands, hidden
in your legs.
I am
clothed again
mouth in a pillow
about to put my ear
where I’ve just
dribbled, as you
unfold to take
a shower.
3
Blue threads like light in
a dark photo: phosphorus
on the beach at night.
He forgets to talk.
Each wave leaves shore
like a hand letting go.