The aftermath

Colleen Z Burke

After manic

spring storms

bottlebrushes

are stripped

bare –

shredded

blossoms

sluggish

in sandstone

gutters

ripple slow

as blood

before

congealing

Colleen Z Burke’s most recent and twelfth poetry collection is ‘Sculpting a landscape’ 2019. She has also published two memoirs The Waves Turn and The Human Heart is a Bold Traveller and is co-editor of the anthology The Turning Wave: Poems and Songs of Irish Australia.