Poetry — Commended, Richenda Rudman
Richenda Rudman writes poetry and short stories from her home in Kensington, Victoria. Her work appears in numerous anthologies. Richenda is a former speechwriter and corporate trainer who this year has won the Philippa Holland Award for Poetry and the What’s My Story Poetry Award at City of Stonnington.
Separation
The railway line in the town with its rat-a-tat name
separates north and south
like eggs into whites and yolks.
See north: fluffed up confectionary houses on felt lawns;
breakfast spit is wiped from the shirtfronts
of lawkeepers questioning
whereabouts of inhabitants,
who share values kept in holsters,
alien to the dark-rhythm shindigs
of the women
whose quiet limbs glow like dinner candles in tea-brown water,
or are thrown like used cups
down highway embankments, or are clutched by reeds;
their eyes’ last image—fodder for birds that elsewhere sing sweetly.
Bodies burnt and bleached to cloud signatures
resting under blue plastic
like fallen sky.
A clipboard resting on her belly
omits the search by half-hearted headlights
and the missteps--
countless—like babes learning to walk.
They have been rendered ineligible
for open casket, their last kisses retracted
from the dwellers south of the railway line,
in homes patched and blind-mended,
housing faces crumpled like paper bags
with creases crosshatched from morphing grief,
beneath the redundant crucifix.
A tap drips like tears
south of the railway line,
separating albumen from bloodshot yolk.
separates north and south
like eggs into whites and yolks.
See north: fluffed up confectionary houses on felt lawns;
breakfast spit is wiped from the shirtfronts
of lawkeepers questioning
whereabouts of inhabitants,
who share values kept in holsters,
alien to the dark-rhythm shindigs
of the women
whose quiet limbs glow like dinner candles in tea-brown water,
or are thrown like used cups
down highway embankments, or are clutched by reeds;
their eyes’ last image—fodder for birds that elsewhere sing sweetly.
Bodies burnt and bleached to cloud signatures
resting under blue plastic
like fallen sky.
A clipboard resting on her belly
omits the search by half-hearted headlights
and the missteps--
countless—like babes learning to walk.
They have been rendered ineligible
for open casket, their last kisses retracted
from the dwellers south of the railway line,
in homes patched and blind-mended,
housing faces crumpled like paper bags
with creases crosshatched from morphing grief,
beneath the redundant crucifix.
A tap drips like tears
south of the railway line,
separating albumen from bloodshot yolk.
