Dutch Iris

So effortlessly there,
green into purple,
like a Mont Blanc pen
spurting ink in the air.
Flash against the white palings.
A spade, face down, on the mossy path.

Passersby stop to hum at my gate.
The dog barks.
The letterbox stands sentry

guarding its keep. My hands

surf in the dirt, knuckle-boarding the soil,
dismantling escape tunnels made by worms.
I hear the squeal of the kettle, its steam fogging

the kitchen window, a polished sleeve

making a porthole for the face
of one ready to go down with the ship.
A lone cloud slipcovers the sun.

I can’t move
without slipping on snail tracks,
silver tacks waiting for a bare foot.
Locked on my haunches, I taste the

dew of the morning, which

indiscriminately covers us all

including the one that rises
with dancing hands in shrink-wrapped taffeta,
an explosion of unbelieving, ultraviolet light.

Kim Waters lives in Melbourne. She has a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Deakin University. Her poetry has appeared in The Australian and The Shanghai Literary Review, the Monash, Melbourne and Victoria University creative writing journals Verge, Antithesis and Offset, and in the online ones Communion and Tincture.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.