Vespertine
Gemma Parker (University of Adelaide, Australia)
The dinghies are moored, the shallow water naked,
rippling, or dressed only in ripples.
Four pelicans roost on a sandbar,
rocked by the incessant wind,
the day fading just as it has begun
to be worth something.
What is the sound of the sea, the wind, the waves –
the creak of the clothesline as it spins?
A series of moments, breaking.
Night whispers a warning.
The wind is rising, the sand is shifting.
Soon even shadows will cease to exist.
Gemma Parker is an award-winning poet, teacher, PhD candidate and student member of the J M Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide. Her work has been published locally and internationally in Award Winning Australian Writing, Transnational Literature, Tokyo Poetry Journal, Mascara Literary Review and StylusLit. Gemma is one of the co-founders and managing editors of the new Adelaide literary journal, The Saltbush Review. She lives and works on Kaurna Country in Adelaide after many years abroad.
