homoe

 

‘homoe’ is part of a six-poet series presented alongside NIDANights in the Peril x NIDA Melbourne event collaboration, ‘You Are Not Here’.


homoe

 

she blowdries her hair the same time as vacuuming

she thinks the leaves are coming in

she wears orange as if it is home, if not home then a home in knowing

she means what she wants when she says her time has passed

she asks me to take her skirt off when we kiss in the spare room

she asks me to put ½ teaspoon more cream in her coffee

she asks me how I feel when I wake and she is all I feel

she lives in water like water is our author

she holds my hand with three fingers and a thumb

she misses a spot as she vacuums and she returns

Ellen van Neerven

Author: Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven is an award-winning writer of Mununjali Yugambeh (south east Queensland) and Dutch heritage. They write fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction. Ellen’s first book, Heat and Light, was the recipient of the David Unaipon Award, the Dobbie Literary Award and the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Indigenous Writers Prize. Ellen’s second book, a collection of poetry, Comfort Food, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize and highly commended for the 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Throat, Ellen’s highly anticipated second poetry collection, is out now.

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