Annette Cameron Encouragement Award for Unpublished W.A. Poet (2021)
1st place ‘Impossible Jeans’ judged by Caitlin Maling as part of the Katharine Susannah Prichard Poetry and Prose Competitions 2021
Read judge’s report here
https://www.kspwriterscentre.com/2020-21-competition-winners
Impossible Jeans
After Denim Day
It creeps. Rifles her body−absolves blame,
nodding assent to her undoing. In jeans,
solidarity surrounds wounded fruit,
hounds’ bare teeth outraged by unjust decree.
A protest captures wind change in ancient
Piazza. A limpet undone, traction
lost to wayward nerve. They all wear jeans
disrupting parliament, dissidents bay
in protest of the judge’s verdict−that
it’s impossible to rape a woman
wearing jeans. It annihilates. Raided
fabric plunders breaching boundaries of
what little flesh. It insinuates. Frayed
breaths whisper−a culprit of poor choices.
Her body is sacked, Rome is in ruins
legitimising lawlessness. Undone.
She bears slander−bequeathed shame.
Cheeks turn raw and razed. He flees pardoned.
She seeks asylum−back against sullied walls
to lean. Uneven bird shit drips, stains stone
paths piercing soles of unsupportive flimsy
sandals. Judgemental leer points, penetrates
resolve. The bench marks her jeans. Undone.
Even in jeans.
The Ballina Region for Refugees Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize
Highly Commended for my poem ‘the stranger’
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