23 April 2025
submitted for Australian Poetry Anthology Vol. 12 2025 on 18 June 2025

avoiding the crump

white chalk on the night, write a wish in the sky
quick, rub it out, before it comes true

then scribble something ridiculous in your heart
like before the flood i am or density is god

the blossoming nodes and edges of who you are
attend to it – the space between edges is where

everything that could otherwise happen doesn’t
the awful has grunted and such it is