Jan Napier

MELANCHOLIA*

Listen to Audio Version read by Jill Khoury.

She buttons up    wraps herself around Tanqueray
hunches deep into Sexton   Berryman
thinks of stones and water    the falling dream
lapidary dissolution.
Quotes ambergris and apricots for melancholia.
Confesses that no one understands the agony
of prey    crushes forgiveness   pins her own bones
half hitches thought to verticality    swans it.
Tastes the spreadability of red.

* Previously published in Mozzie.

Jan Napier is Western Australian poet and short story writer whose work won the 2014 Creatix prize for poetry. Her writing has been published in journals and anthologies within Australia and beyond. She was the in house reviewer Antipodean SF between 2009, and 2012. In 2011, Jan broke both of her wrists, resulting in permanent disability.