We stop for coffee and cake.
Only another hour to go
but sugar is needed
so too are empty bladders.

I disappear to the ‘Ladies’
housed in spider-blown brick.
Twitching fluorescents
dance more shadow than light
over lime-green cubicles
with temperamental locks.

But there’s paper and soap
and roses
blood-red and blooming
as if somebody cares.

J V Birch

J V Birch lives in Adelaide. Her poems have appeared in anthologies, journals and magazines across Australia, the UK, Canada and the US. She has two collections – Smashed glass at midnight (Ginninderra Press 2015) and What the water & moon gave me (Ginninderra Press 2016) – and is finalising her third.

© 2018