'Taxidermy' by AMANDA JOY

I can hold my tongue/ and then

we make so much use of rocks
/ and then who first thought
to break them down into their
elements / when did we start to
think we are stardust

sequence of events/ and then

what can be made from a heart
without a body or vice versa

/ and then / when
I asked you to take my place
you asked if I was here to stay
I wasn’t
sure if I was forgotten or lost

Time is colourless / and then
I think I once swallowed a day
whole without thinking

/ and then these ways we avoid
fullness here I will make another
void for someone else’s ghost

a window holds a sky
a valley shapes a reservoir
a body is its organs


deep places hold water longer


Bio Notes

Amanda Joy is a poet, sculptor, installation artist and songwriter born in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She currently lives, works and gardens in Fremantle and travels as often as she can, mostly between France and Australia.
Her poetry has been published in various journals online and in print such as Cottonmouth, Up The Staircase Literary Review, Numbat, Killpoet, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Alabaster and Mercury, Heroin Love Songs, The Toronto Quarterly, Black Listed Magazine and The Best Australian Poems 2009(ed. Robert Adamson, pub. BlackInc.).
She has a fascination with portals and conduits and every now and then she pops out a little limited edition illustrated chapbook for those who ask nicely. A tiny, yet sincere chapbook of her poetry, Not Enough To Fold was lovingly published through Verve Bath Press early this year. A more sizeable binding of her wordage is gestating.

She blogs her poetry semi regularly at her website http://www.littleglasspen.com and http://www.myspace.com/amanda_joy1970.

Keeper of a dog called Love, her heart still beats like small pink feet on red earth.