Genealogy

by Suzi Mezei

My sick tree buckles
with bald boughs and knots that clump,
spiralling into darkness,
my tree without birdsong
whose wasp-swollen branches crack
and shatter the falling sky,
my tree whose gnarled roots
scratch wounds
 
upon my tongue,
draws me  near,
tries to kiss me again.
My hollow darling,
my old master,
not sure whether
to forget you
or kill you.

Poet biography:
Suzi Mezei is a Sri Lankan born, Melbourne writer published in journals and anthologies. This year, her work has appeared in Brushstrokes, Not Keeping Mum (published to raise money for PANDA postnatal anxiety and depression) and been recognised at the Ada Cambridge Awards where she won the Biographical Prose Prize and was placed in the Poetry Prize. Suzi successfully combines the beach with coffee, a love of films, reading ’till her eyes hurt and, she has been accused of fawning over her dogs.