POETRY March 5, 2021

under bridges

in the chat bar / the trolls are worried / about the women / on the panel / are the women married / they ask / and do they have / children / if not / is this the reason / they are so lonely? / and need to write feminist⎯⎯

in the news picture / they are four people / men in suits / nice pinstripe suits / the article points out / posing together / for a photo / the way a rock band / might have / in the 1980s / and they are / the political future / so the story says / of⎯⎯

on social media / a person missing / becomes / a body found / Twitter floods / with bro- / ken ♥ / the person’s body didn’t always fit / but they found a way to trans-late / now gone / transmission fin⎯

a body / excited / erects an attack on a body that / didn’t always / rides / the blowout / and / a body / exhausted / from always alert / being looked at / surrenders / to the blows of⎯

is that a man or a woman / one of the people / asks in the chat / about one of / the lonely panelists / who looks unlike what they think a woman should / punctuation / as ammunition / !?!? 

public mourning / says one of the / lonely people / on the panel / can be a / political act / grieving bodies / on streets / in parks / at gatherings / remembering bodies / not suit-ed / for future success /

Emilie Collyer lives in Australia on Wurundjeri land where she writes poetry, plays and prose. Her writing has appeared most recently in The Blue Nib, The Ekphrastic Review, TEXT, Rabbit, Witness Performance and Cordite. Award-winning plays include Contest, Dream Home and The Good Girl which has had multiple international productions. She is currently undertaking a PhD in creative writing at RMIT in Melbourne.