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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