by Izzie Conti

Written by Isabel Conti

the day’s break is cool that of a butcher’s metallic backroom. Methodical sectioning and dismemberingPatsy’s

Flat peacefully calculated; memories passed strung on like- metal hooks upstairs sit the edible forest green vines, a head gazes down the side of another bed backlit against textured grey plaster a key, a crushed plastic bottle, the antique amber of last night’s pinot gris the walls hold unwavering Venetian clay, no, not here she is; non always comes before è plates stained with dolmades say otherwise she came to; blinking with tender eyes, the world curious; ebbing with possibility at day break she’d catch a glimpse at the moment before wake; escape through a crack in the door, and listen to the birds sing their beautiful cacophony her feet bruised from lawn weeds she’d sit under the veranda and pick them out, one by one

dawn still comes, less of blessing, and more of a certainty she hasn’t learnt; still trails out barefoot into the lawn full of Bindis down to the gumtrees, where flecks of oyster shells still sit; the same her Nonna threw habitually, a pseudo pavements for Patsy’s Flat, a trail from the ocean

preserve it, in brine each memory—immortalised; like the young girls finger prints; they sit there in pastels, blue tacked on the wall dawn has changed now, the gum inhales our memories; shedding itself of it’s skin

his shells still shine, a mirage of opalescent purple