Alison J Barton

Alison J Barton is a Wiradjuri poet based in Melbourne. Themes of race relations, Aboriginal-Australian history, colonisation, gender and psychoanalytic theory are central to her poetry. She was the inaugural winner of the Cambridge University First Nations Writer-in-Residence Fellowship and received a Varuna Mascara Residency. Her debut collection, Not Telling is published by Puncher and Wattmann. www.alisonjbarton.com / Instagram @alison_j_barton
 
 
 
 
 
Mirror

my mother was a bear that couldn’t walk itself
her reside a sulking weight I trailed
grief hauled from under the volume of her
my reflection, an infancy of sound-gathering
like an instrument archiving its vibrations
I stored language for both of us
tooled it to fill her gaps
we bore the cacophony as one
she arranged its tenors
woefully concrete, stalkingly anchored
the shape of me lined with benevolent deceit
her indebted angel-monster
at the door she would cant, hoping it might open
night would plummet and I would flinch
breathe in what had been committed
abandoning her in the light
words formed and stuck to the back of my throat
when I measured her
I got an elliptical question that reinforced our wounds
petrified its answerer
steeped into the matter of things
staining the passage
some are lost learning to speak
some have voices that shake walls
fill quiet rooms
but the reprise, the inverted translation
desecrated us together
we needed to finish like this
with an aching acid chest
marched to an absolute
now I am emptying my mother