Holding on
The morning is screaming and lurching like the one-
engine plane. When it looped the large sand
island, I couldn’t bear to look down
at the forest pock-
marked
below. Nothing but a surging and a thrashing which
I imagined to be the world shaking itself free
of us. We were ice cubes in a tipping
tumbler. Motherhood has
only one
engine. When our contract was first written, I still
believed in the clearness of crystal and that
love was a shockproof seal. Your skate-
board is a mirage at the corner
but I see
every pedantic detail in the fretwork of the smug
suburban houses. No idea when I’ll be back
is in a coil of fear that licks the winter
air in your wake. On my shelf is
a picture
of you at five offering a flower for me to hold.
Jane Frank’s latest chapbook is Wide River (Calanthe Press, 2020). Her poems have appeared most recently in Westerly, Plumwood Mountain, StylusLit, Shearsman, Burrow, Meridian, Social Alternatives, Grieve vol 9 (Hunter Writers Centre, 2021), Not Very Quiet: The Anthology (Recent Work Press, 2021), Poetry for the Planet (Litoria Press, 2021) and The Incompleteness Book II (Recent Work Press, 2021). She was recently shortlisted for both The Newcastle Poetry Prize 2021 and Takahe’s Monica Taylor Poetry Prize 2021. In March 2021, Jane was a Feature Poet at StAnza International Poetry Festival (St. Andrews, Scotland). Originally from the Fraser Coast region, Jane now lives in Brisbane and teaches in Humanities at Griffith University. Read more of her work at https://www.facebook.com/JaneFrankPoet/ and https://janefrankpoetry.wordpress.com/
Author bio