Backyard bounty

Colleen Z Burke

Yesterday a stick 
hung over the clothesline
I flicked it with my finger
but it drifted back
to the same position 
Perfectly balanced
its twig like legs/arms
were suspended 
in summery air
I was entranced 
by the grace and 
poise of this large 
Titan Stick Insect –
the Great Brown Phasma,
taking time out
from this tarnished 
world of ours
to relax on my tatty 
inner city clothesline

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Colleen Z Burke is a poet and author whose most recent and twelfth poetry collection is ‘Sculpting a landscape’ 2019. She has also published two memoirs The Waves Turn and The Human Heart is a Bold Traveller and is co-editor of the anthology The Turning Wave:  Poems and Songs of Irish Australia.

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