The Wednesday Poem

Bottlebrush on Tuckfield​

last week they frothed over the street
red-red feathers in a can-can dance
crimson swinging in the wind

wattle birds, butcher birds, the lorikeet invader
honey-eaters: new hollands, singing and the brown
whistling ever earlier Matins at our window

soon enough – the saturation of sweet fun
and the weight of beaks and bees –
the red falls in honeyed clots

flushed sticky stamens under our door
the bonnet of the car even a floret in our bed
all that bitumen cannot stop
the abundant rush

Josephine Clarke

Josephine Clarke writes short stories and poetry. She has been a member of OOTA since 2005, and helped organise the Fremantle Voicebox poetry readings from 2007 – 2022. Her work has been published in various Australian journals including Westerly, Southerly, The Review of Australian Fiction and ABR. In 2020 UWA Press published her first collection of poetry, Recipe for Risotto.

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