The Ultimate Swansong
Poetry microdose: Day Twenty-Three
the children of convicts
are angels born with orphaned wings.
not even on her deathbed did ned kelly
hear his sea-nymph mother sing.
black ships sailed over her iris
in silence, drowning out the chorus
of lungs sinking in wrist-bound seas
of captivity. he said he saw bunyips perish
without so much as a hiss, that only yowies lips move
with the melodies of death. walking on a weak-beating wing,
he hummed snatches of lines and odes and then,
as the bell struck ten, on the metal floor of the gallows,
he uttered a quiet swansong, such is life.
Stevi-Lee Alver is an Australian writer and tattoo artist. She lives in the middle of Brazil with her wife. She loves bush walks and waterfalls but misses the ocean.
This poem is part of the drains of her mind collection.
