So much swollen, so much weak
You open your bones like a bird
You open your heart like a brave
drunk confronted by the gutter

daring to place his unsteady
chappel closer to the ground
You, who can neither fly nor fall
with natural agility, keep on

unearthing noisy stones to climb
unthinkingly: enticed by the view
of the regulars, imagining orchids
both fragile and inflated

marking their suspension, crawling
alien legs around a broad face.
You open your mouth in thirst for
the roar around your triumph

at your insistence on staying open
to the brutish rising of the road.

…

Dr Kathryn Hummel is a writer and researcher whose creative and scholarly works have been widely published/presented/translated/anthologised/recognised. Currently, she edits non-fiction and travel writing for Australia’s Verity La. Kathryn’s fifth volume of poetry is forthcoming with Singapore’s Math Paper Press and her sixth and seventh with London’s Prote(s)xt Books.