mandurah in memory

2022

mandurah calls to me

the way a memory bleeds sleepless nights.

it demands to be heard, it sings

a siren song littered with the voices

of a brazen crow cawing outside my window,

the blinds rattling in moonlit slumber,

stirring pebbles on the concrete driveway,

a blooming garden of my grandmother’s lemons,

the marigold sunrise refusing to leave my soul.

mandurah welcomes me

the way a mother pampers her child,

she dresses me in evergreen flowers,

holds me in a long-lost embrace.

she never leaves my side, spends her days

feeding me honey dripping sunshine,

perfumes herself with a salty ocean mist,

the tenderness of her farewell lullabies

sticking to my skin even long after

i leave her side once more.

mandurah forgets me

the way i no longer recognise the city

after three years, how i have outgrown every last

pair of my shoes, an aching garage door shutting me

out. i peel the sea-stained air from my lungs,

finding it hard to stomach her snowless

breeze, her pinecone smile, a wave

crashing into my hand but evaporating

before it lingers long enough, never enough.

mandurah lets me cling to her

the way i beseech her rural roads, refuse

to let her sand-strewn soul fade into nostalgia.

she suspends me in the beauty

of how the tide pulls out and will always return,

of when i am a child again and forgetting

that i have lived my childhood toeing

a winter-baked jetty listening to dolphins

break the water, blessed in the knowledge

that what i hear is home.