Compost by Emily Crocker

Compost

Like emptied prayer flags, anemic and unanswered,

damp tea bags flap cold on the line, retrieved.

re-ingesting discarded parts of myself by the mugful.

The compost bin hunched in a colourbond corner

belly full of hair clippings and coffee grounds

Ambiguous packaging, polyvinyl clinging to itself,

when I mulch my body in this metaphor I am,

by the dirt, implicated as both garden and gardener.

“Produce” just has the metallic tang to it of blood,

like the smell on your hands after counting money,

the polymer banknotes chopping against each other

with the soft rhythm of a spade. Is that why we stress the ‘O’

when we speak of apples? That the homonym won’t

muddle fruit and fruit. A stinking breeze haunts

my mornings. We howl together. A stressed O O Over

the garbage truck beeping and spluttering down the street.

I mourn the space I take up. Eat my words down

to the last scrape every time. But for now, suspend

the plastic things, like baubles, from the hills hoist.

A grim orchard in full bloom.

Find more from Emily on her website, or at Enough Said Poetry Slam.

Executive Producers

Daniel Henson

Karolina Ristevski

Sue White