Self Portrait, February 2020

KA Nelson

dedicated to the kookaburra

Refugee from bushfire,
smoke and storm—
will mincemeat do?
Sorry for your loss
of habitat. Thanks 
for dropping in.
I don’t blame you 
for not eating 	              
from my open 
hand. On this day 
of absences, will you 
laugh for a woman 
thinking of the dead? 
No matter, old love.
Your presence says 
much about acceptance 
and survival.

K A Nelson is a Canberra poet. In 2010 she won a major poetry prize. Since then her work has been widely published in the Canberra Times, Arena, Mascara Literary Journal, Rabbit and elsewhere. Recent Work Press published her first collection, Inlandia, in 2018. She has contributed to, and was guest editor for Not Very Quiet, Issue 4 in 2019, a Canberra-based online journal for women poets.