A new animal

Featured in

  • Published 20231107
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-89-4
  • Extent: 208pp
  • 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.

Share article

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,...

More from this edition

Where the wild things aren’t

Non-fictionMelbourne Zoo knows that it sits in an uneasy position as a conservationist advocate, still keeping animals in cages, and with an exploitative and cruel past. Our guides for the evening walked a practised line between acknowledging the zoo’s harmful history and championing its animal welfare programs, from the native endangered species they’re saving to their Marine Response Unit, a dedicated seaside taskforce just waiting for their sentimental action movie.

Before I forget again

Poetry I am a ceramic horse in kintsugi  fields. Shards shred my tongue to gold  rivers. Cracked and crazed – from fire  gallops beast. Memory slips  lapis lazuli. I break  curses, gather spells. Nudge  fresh letters in water troughs – watch words bob – shiny  new apples to crunch.

Sartre’s lobsters 

Non-fictionIn The Secret Life of Lobsters (2004), Trevor Corson describes how, before the lobster’s status had sufficiently improved for affluent urbanites to desire its meat, ‘lobster’ was used derogatorily to describe British redcoats during the American Revolution and, later, dupes or fools in general.  Which brings me to Jordan Peterson.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.