Aunty with the cold
hands
--- Laura Brinson
my Aunty with the cold
hands
Aunty in name only
I barely remember her
face
but those hands
crooked joints, square
blunt nails
nicotine stained
the shock of cold
fingers
on my pillowy pink arm
as Aunty shepherds us
past Bluey
Bluey, old and rusty as
the fly-wire door
that snaps shut behind
us
Singed by bushfire
Aunty says
singed rusty red like
the old couch
with its old couch smell
rusty red like sediment
in the water jug
its lace covering an
octopus
long white tentacles,
blue glass suckers
forgotten cigarettes
stand upright on side
benches and tables
tiny smoking chimney
stacks
towers of white ash
smokes in an ashtray
could start a bushfire.
Aunty says
Aunty has a husband
we don’t call him uncle
mostly he works in the
cow shed
but sometimes
we hear the creak and
sigh of floorboards
in the front room
my sibling and me, we
turn our noses up
at an unfamiliar dinner
mashed veg and pork
chops, singed
More for Garbage Guts
Bluey the dog or Jack in
the cow shed?
Both unaccustomed to
children Aunty
says
a fat slice of
blackberry pie
my fingers still stained
from picking
the purple black fruit
now sugar dusted
juice runs down my
sleeve
we watch television
unsupervised
sleep head to toe in a
single bed
bush block silence keeps
us awake
we make up ghost stories
that always include an
icy touch
just as Aunty foretold
they lost the farm in
‘62
when bushfires swept
through
The clever design of
small things
--- Laura Brinson
a smooth mushroom-shape
pitted and nicked
darkened with age
snugly slips into toe or
heel
needles neatly stowed
in the hollowed stem
a wood-turner, likely a
man,
worked this scrap of
fruit wood
its close, swirling
grain
and crafted an essential
household tool
but the dark patina of
constant handling
came from women before
me
I weave the long needle
in and out
maintaining an even
tension
when I lay aside
my darning mushroom
will someone else take
up the task
or will it end its days
a collector’s item