Almanac Poetry: ‘Finding Me’ – Robyn Black
finding me
I stand at the angle best seen by my mirror
strain to catch the lean lines of form
but they have been consumed, swallowed
by the rest of my body, swelled to enormous
ambushed, I press myself into the dusk
try to disappear into the dark, but I am bulk.
He touches with light tongue, insistent
flicks his way through the flesh,
skin whispers on skin, tracing slick promise
on a body that cannot remember itself.
I once fitted neat, side-saddle on the bar
of my boy’s bicycle, his lithe form
curved protectively at my back, his breath
fluttered hotly, sighing sweet promise
we flew through warm summer night
on strong legs and teenaged eros
now his mouth challenges and I feel
he has coloured outside the lines.
©Robyn Black
No Straight Lines can be purchased Here.
More poetry from Robyn can be read Here.
More poetry from Almanac Poetry can be read HERE
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About
Robyn Black is a poet, memoirist and short story writer who has twice won the Open Poetry section of the Joseph Furphy prize and then annually judged this section of the Award until it ceased in 2019. She is the co-ordinator of the new Furphy Literary Award ($15,000 1st Prize), an annual award which commenced in 2020. She also judges the Furphy Literary Award Youth Poetry section. Former president of the Goulburn Valley Writers Group Inc., she is also a former editor of Tamba Magazine and has been published in a number of literary magazines including Tamba, Ripples, The Wild Goose, Regime Books and The Australian Writer as well as on the Australia Poetry website. Robyn has enjoyed a varied experience in connecting locally with literary pursuits including being involved with the former Country Festival of Writing (which ran for 10 years in Shepparton); literary workshops; poetry sessions in local primary schools; joint ventures with local arts organisations; is an interviewer of writers at ‘author talk’ and literary panel events, including the 2023 Bendigo Writers Festival, and has several years involvement with the Shepparton Arts Festival ‘Breakfast with the Poets’. Robyn was also longlisted in the inaugural (2011) Montreal International Poetry Prize with her poem ‘boat talk’. She was short-listed in the 2016 and 2017 Alan Marshall Short Story Awards and the 2016 VU/Overland Short Story Award for Emerging Writers and has collaborative work exhibited at several local art spaces. She shortlisted in the 2024 Margaret Hazzard Short Story Award and gained a Special Commendation for her short story ‘Old Truths’ in the 2024 Scarlet Stiletto. Robyn is the Regional Ambassador – Goulburn Valley Region - for Writers Victoria. Her first collection of poetry - No Straight Lines published by Ginninderra Press - was released in October 2021.
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