All words © Stephanie Powell | Attic Poet
Where they walked the disappearing path, through the low-slung dunes and sea-scrub to the spot, where they reclined fully dressed, three-piece suits and boots for the men, Sunday hats and heirloom watches, the women in wool skirts and jackets, the crisp linen of their shirts un-opened, squat- heeled shoes where you can see the nails bolted into the soles, where squinting eyes are whipped by sanded wind, looking towards twin headlands, where the Christmas beetles are moving lumps of beach in a production line, where the water is drowning back-treading tide, its seaweed throat salt-sore and alive with algae and hermit crabs, where children in emulsion-dyed pinafores are digging holes that fill with water to the knee, where they are sexless and carefully dressed, where they are diligent churchgoers, worshipers of a stranger-God, a tough-love God, who they believe sees them most on this day, where their bodies still live, with hearts, stomachs and bowel movements, where socks and stockings are showing below lifted hems as they pose for a photo, where someone has set the table for lunch, eight plates, eight metal cups and round tins of fruit cake and warm sandwiches, where the ocean-eucalypts still crash together and shiver. Winner, Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize, 2022
