Amethyst fell
from my mother’ s throat—
her birthstone, scattered
in the garden. She’d never
counted her mauve worlds,
couldn’t tell if she’d restrung
the frail balance around her neck.

One bead hides in her garden—
observes how the iris
resembles sculpted hair.

Alone and unthreaded,
it calibrates those soft explosions—
jacaranda
jacaranda
jacaranda

Each naked blossom
like a girl snug in her doona—
before she doubted
the properties of mauve.

Susan Fealy

 

Susan Fealy is a Melbourne-based poet and clinical psychologist. Her first collection, Flute of Milk (UWAP) won the 2017 Wesley Michel Wright Prize, the 2018 NSW Society of Women Writers Book Award (Poetry) and shortlisted for the 2018 Mary Gilmore Award.

© 2019