BY ANDY JACKSON
First published in The Suburban Review, issue 36 (Disability), and later in Australian Poetry’s anthology, Best of Australian Poems 2025.
Reposted with permission from the author.
I’m facing the horizon. Any edge of this headland, at a
moment’s notice (or less) can shear off. Disintegration
is like this, gradual and sudden. Surge of cortisol, aria
of a body shaken by its future. A more severe seizure
of reason is to imagine the death of another, a loved fellow walker
through stressed, remnant country. These days, when solitary,
I’m restless in remembrance and foreboding. An overdub I
(and you) can discern in the human chorus. The full moon
can make light of darkness. How can we, when we’re asynchronous
with our own heartbeat, with the earth? Each death strips
a layer of skin off. (Wave follows wave, upon the shore.) Every life,
every animal, a library, with the fires closing in. Our perch on jagged
circumstance, like staggering along a windswept cliff –
and smoke obscures the way to a vast, older garden.
“[This poem] wants to persist through crisis, wonders how, doesn’t have the answers, except perhaps in what grief implies, which is love and interconnectedness.”
Click here to read our full interview with Andy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Jackson is an award-winning poet, essayist, and creative writing lecturer at the University of Melbourne. His work, which frequently explores themes of difference and disability, has been published in numerous newspapers and literary journals, and he has been featured in multiple national and international writers festivals. He has published several poetry collections, including Human Looking (Giramondo, 2021) which won the Prime Ministers Literary Award for Poetry in 2022. Jackson has recently released his latest poetry collection, Askew (Giramondo, 2026), which ruminates on a disabled world.
Post published 01/10/26
Leave a Reply