• Susan Fealy
 

Six definitions of love you can’t explain 

 
i
desert wells
 
ii
fieldwork with spiritual intent
 
iii
music composed on the eyes
 
iv
the canvas is larger
                               
v
a small plane flying
into desert rain
 
vi
a pact between red,
blue, and almost white 

 

          

This poem was adapted from ‘Colouring the Desert’ by Nicholas Rothwell.
Weekend Australian. July 20 2013. 

 

 

 

The Super-salad Emerges from Cellophane

 

i. Kale

 

A studious form of spinach.

 

Coral growing under water that isn’t there;

the more it grows, the more it curls

like well-read books, the more it resembles

a little museum of green.

 

 

ii. Purple Cabbage

 

It has something of William Morris

but it’s hard as Brighton Rock.

 

Unsettling as stripey flowers

and paperchains that border classrooms:

something is wrong

when festive combines with neat.

 

 

iii. Beetroot

 

A creature drawn from a small black lake.

 

A vegetarian dreams her version of black pudding.

 

Breasts under wine-dark lycra, or speaking

from the table I’ve-left-your-body womb.

Yes, beetroot is the new black.