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- Published 20231107
- ISBN: 978-1-922212-89-4
- Extent: 207pp
- Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible
My son has made friends
with the daddy-long-legs
under the kitchen bench.
Each morning
I am freshly summoned
to ‘um ook at em.’
Come look at him.
The body: a dot
of graphite
huddled in the corner,
its pencil-line legs
all bent up in a scribble.
I am relieved he is not like me
as a child: afraid of spiders.
‘Ook ook Mummy.’
He is pointing under the bench.
‘It’s is oome.’
His home.
I can’t bring myself to vacate
the corpse:
I want the friendship
to last.
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About the author
Jo Ward
Jo Ward is a poet living in Kupidabin, Queensland. She is the author of A Quiet Sorcery (Hardie Grant, 2022) and founder of Ovidian,...
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