Curtain
Barrina South
TV’s neon eye blinks
sending light around the room
a sour smell of a dog’s underbelly
a whisper of cool air across my feet
rest of my body, hot
tongue coated in gin
dog stirs
so, does he
lying beside me
sheer curtain rises
draws back
on the breeze
it is that time of night
across the street
top apartment light flicks on
I make my way to the window
sheet around shoulders
drops
stay just long enough
until the light flicks off
before the dog moves
and he wakes
Barrina is a Barkindji woman who is poet, artist, and critic. Barrina was one of five Australian poets selected to participate in the 2022 Invisible Walls: poetry as a Doorway to Intercultural Understanding paired with a Korean poet to explore cross-cultural dialogue. An initiative run in partnership with the University of South Australia and Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. In the same year, she was Writer in Residence at the University of Canberra, and was published in The Art Issue, Rabbit: a journal for nonfiction poetry plus Interliminal Encounters: Indian and Australian Writers in Po (i) etic Dialogue, Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Kolkata, India. Barrina is a current member of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN), a Director of Us Mob Writing (UMW) and a contributor and editor of Too Deadly Our Voice Our Way Our Business.