2004 Tom Collins Poetry Prize

Yippee! My friend Kay Cairns has just won the Fellowship of Australian Writers (WA Inc) Tom Collins Poetry Prize for 2004 with her poem called Exit Wounds - a little favourite of mine ... She has graciously let me display it here:

Exit wounds

I found a used condom in your room today
among the cd cases, the schoolwork,
the socks, the jocks
that should have been in the laundry.

Soft in its rubbery limpidness
it made a statement so stark
it cut through sinewed cords
freeing you from me
and me
from you.

'Do you want to do something with that?'
I smiled, off-hand, matter-of-fact,
while already I mourned
an end
to childhood play
shared laughter
your tiny hand in mine.


Kay Cairns