Poems by Nadia Rhook
future simple
sunlight landing on pillows saturday morning cookups days here are long and the nights, getting longer curtains closed we wrap our wintered limbs in the syncopated alarms of nightshift 10pm is fried egg and tomato sauce on wonder white and these are days I learn to identify ( turns out I’m still British ) sunlight lands on pillows and I hang the cloth beads round my neck bright colours, purple a red I would’ve never thought to choose not sure whose fantasy this is, bejewelled in Reject Shop matt the treasure stays with me on the drive from Reservoir to Kew this public school girl’s crossing north to south the lines of class steel ‘n slippery, as train tracks in these days the darkness becomes more desirable more place to hide than fear since the curtains are closed it’d be too obvious to suspect we were covering something up meanwhile, in the lounge room sunlight lands on cushions and textbooks and Lee Lee Chin announces it’s time for us to master the past perfect the past participle the present perfect the future simple grammar turns late urban comfort into a strange erratic language full of tricks and traps more William Jones than Hamlet in the yard, dried twigs and branches serve as reminders of the big wide breathing world out there, how much visas cost and how damp things lose moisture when left out in the sun on that day, there are flowers wrapped in red cellophane lying in the middle of the bed so I turn the light on to see them carry them through the long corridor out to the back yard sunlight falls on flowers, and stems and I can see it’s not for me to take the test, under the mid afternoon sun the speech act (in memory of Alfred Deakin, after Judith Butler) the day you pass the law the morning light is gentle, as Melbourne light as Birrarangga light can be this cloudy dawn hinting we’ll have a pure sapphire sky by midday Christmas? two days away Jesus? he liked rules, fathers, and sons but anyway does it matter, you, more into mysticism and séances than gods with a capital G Act 17 a Test in any European language chosen at the discretion of the immigration officer did my ancestors read about it in the paper, or were they buying potatoes from the store, mending socks, picking ore from the roof of a mine, placing bets on whippets down at the pub history tells me you slept well that night, horizontal, blood draining from your head, to your heart you dreamt the future had finally arrived and she was clothed in the soft cotton Shakespearean grammars of your childhood you dreamt of tests you never had to study for conversations you passed with flying colours EnglandAustraliaAmerica holding hands across the ocean singing Yankee Doodle God Save the Queen in one voice the lessons of the Tower of Babel circulating like monolingual blood through your placenta-wrapped national body you slept well that night on the soft bed of proof it’s the destiny of your race[1] to be heard above the din of the white man to earn a higher wage the day after the Act, in a rush of blood to the head you spoke once again and many black-hair-lined-white ears turned like sunflowers in the direction of your gravelly voice, slowly, toward the bright sun as ears are wont to align upon such a warm, promising, command we never thought to ask if we could take back these speech acts once they were out in the world if we can live with their breathy consequences chanting altogether now my blood my act my speech blood sing every day a new dawn, every dawn, new nation, every nation, new speech [1] This is a reference to Alfred Deakin’s frequent invocation of the offensive idea of a transnational ‘English- speaking race’ in the lead up to Australian Federation in 1901. Alfred Deakin was the second Prime Minister of Australia and influential in the implementation of the Immigration Restriction Act, widely known as the White Australia Policy. |
Nadia Rhook is a white settler historian, writer, and poet. She currently lectures and researches Indigenous, Asian, and Australian history at the University of Western Australia, on Whadjuk Noongar land. Her research is much inspired by her background in ESL teaching, and in 2016 she curated the City of Melbourne heritage exhibition 'Moving Tongues: language and migration in 1890s Melbourne'. She designed the public history walking tour 'Migration Melbourne' delivered for a range of festivals and events, including the 2017 Melbourne Writer's Festival. Her poetry appears in Cordite, Peril Magazine, Westerly, Mascara Review, and forthcoming in the bi-lingual AJAR journal.
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