BY SHAINE MELROSE, 2026
Look across the ocean
sun streams over aquamarine
do you know she is sick? Foam and carcass,
scientific algal-sludge specimen.
Try to explain, unravel, reinstitute
interpretations of life with chronic illness–
Plans spooned– carefully measured, broken
hibernation– wave-crash continuum–spiked tentacles
wrap, poison my torso, reveal my dynamic world.
Deep crushing-dark speaks to our kind of words–
One thousand metres below water’s surface,
animalia impossibly exist, thrive on seamounts,
abundant– like our invisible illnesses– here in the deep
possible solutions face devastation.
Sketch, stitch, breathe a breath through a thin hollow
reed of my day into the blissful unknowing
of yours. Inconceivable cold, acid-burn,
spiny-jaw-bite of glassy maw,
heated volcanic murmurs, molten exhalations–
flesh stripped off splintered bone.
It’s a daily dive.
“The algal bloom in South Australia inspired me to write this poem. This natural disaster confirmed my idea of the ocean as a great entity suffering the ills of this world…”
Click here to read our full interview with Shaine.
Shaine Melrose is a writer, poet and gardener living and resting on Kaurna Yerta. In 2025, Shaine won a Red Room Poetry Fellowship and Varuna remote residency. Published in numerous anthologies and journals, Shaine’s work explores the natural world, chronic illness, and the queer-self. Shaine has been commended and runner-up in several local/national competitions, including shortlisted for The Judith Wright Poetry prize 2022, and longlisted in the Vice Chancellors International Poetry Prize 2023. Shaine’s full length poetry collection, The Natural World Somersaults, was published in late 2024 by Walleah Press.
Post published 01/09/26
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