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She ran through the swinging doors

blood bruising her mightgown and the 

policewoman's eye catching, squaring 

with duty. :He's coming, the halved woman 

says. :No, the uncapped officer replies.

(soliloquy sweet, asylm sanguine)

this is a police station. And they

turn to see the doors clapping his 

arrival, his hair unmuffled, his pie-face 

nuggety and sure. It's as if the world has 

wronged the wrong man, and the smile

on the minds in blue, smile as the woman 

shrinks and wraps a shroud of obdurate 

endurance around her as he, her pernicious 

foe is taken, locked behind paper walls

for a  moment's moment.

                                               S.J. Finn

Crave

on the lee side of perambulator

she’s curling in her straight stick body

for what she staves off like her

baby’s milk drying up, her eyes writhing

scraping past another shock

another dark interior of mirror

in which a girl is posturing,

kicking up one hip

chuckling over nothing but a dream

the drift of spreading thoughts

and even her baby

soundless and calm does

not tug, not like a want she’s

clawed her way out of once already

sawn off brutally, unhooded

so that nothing is planted in her

as she circles emancipation

weighing everything up

                                    S.J. Finn                                        

No Returns

At the checkout I stand free-associating. The suburbs                                                                                                            have spread north along the stitched river matted now                                                                                                            with large goldfish that look as if they’re lounging about                                                                                                          but are actually stirring up muck. Nothing so sticky                                                                                                                      but the swath of bitumen snaking around city-standard houses,                                                                                            garnished with accessories (jet-skis, tinnies, trail-bikes)                                                                                                               – it’s all a two-lane highway of alliances.

But something catches, Seen from an outsourced eye,                                                                                                                        her plastered fingers, the bandage that skirts her wrist                                                                                                                      and winds back over her knuckles,                                                                                                                                                            my vision travelling like a darting skink: her face,                                                                                                                                    the lush mahogany spike of hair, the thin gold jewellery,                                                                                                                        the hometown slump. Not like my kind: upright, alternate,                                                                                                                    the tag undeniable, even after all these years.

            –Hurt your hand?

            (It’s almost a plea having

            pruned her and her life away.)

            –Hurt for me.

            (Voice like fire crackling. Eyes determined,

            scoping and seeking, passing through the wan of

            a meandering frowning forest of shoppers, her

            anger straying, aimed as it is on someone other.)

            –Crushed me knuckles. After

            all I gave the bastard. Fifteen

            years down the drain.

I swivel, someone listening, some other hybrid citizen, denizen of reproach,                                                                                    arching her back, disdainful, reproofing things and yet somehow righting them.                                                                                  The shuffler of my groceries going hard, relegating items here and there                                                                                                  in the noisy plastic: an organising punctuated with ire!

           –Hope I haven’t upset you.

           –I’m sporting for court. He won’t

            know what hit him. But then,

            every doggy has their day.

Outside, strictures of sunlight vivisect the town’s small town-square.                                                                                                    Hollowed out I walk to my car wondering about privacy,                                                                                                                            the fact people can be shucked open, hoicked from their husk,                                                                                                                  paraded and pirouetted, struck from the safest place.                                                                                                                       

In the parking spot I wait for a burbling family, mum and four agitating kids.                                                                                    Then, knowing that balancing my mood is a high wire act – like flame above fuel –                                                                                  I drift along the road, uncertain of recriminations and even less of redemptions.                                                                                    I’m ascending sooner than I imagined, climbing into the foothills of The Great Divide.

                                                                                                                                              S.J. Finn

A Morning Shot

The sulphur-coloured cloud has moved from the hill

and taken out the view so all I see are my two boots,

their laces flicking about. It’s like looking into

binoculars, watching my feet surf tufty grass, clear

tussocks, brush past bracken—make headway. Maybe

it’s the need for meat that’s ripping something up in

me. Like a plough churning through crusted earth; my

contrivances overturned. Certainly, the soupy air has

distorted things, muffled the morning and taken out

sound as if I’ve entered a chamber with padded sides.

I didn’t think nature could be so solution focused—

might as well have been suited up, staged myself on a

hockey field, holding my stick and waiting for an

offensive, the same cold patch of mist hemming me in

as I concentrate on play. My nose runs. A drumming

rootles through my legs, shakes my cheeks in an out-

of-step shudder. The rim of my cap is beaded with

drips which jigger loose. Either that or they disappear

back into the rolling mist. The land flattens. And in

my palm the A-bolt is stick-of-ice cold. I hope I can

raise the thing, employ a sturdy eye. It means seconds

of calm, the gun dry in my hand; not an easy thing in

this metallic-y water-filled world, my presence

embalmed on a gnarly pot-holed paddock, on a ride of

bumps in too-big clothing. Something alters, a piece

of cloud tears away. I see the mob, their heads down

as they go at the grass or all but one who is stood tall,

shaking water from its pelt like a dog leaving a

waterhole. I still. Ease my backpack from my

shoulders. The rifle tilts at odd angles and there’s the

feel of my clothing rubbing, educing a friction of

materials parting. Like the peel of alfoil or the rasp of

a pill-bottle’s lid as it’s opened. Those thoughts cause

a shaky sickness now. Like the sight of a needle. Just

as grim. The shot meant to counter the jolt, be a dart

to meet the day. And, as if association has strings (at

least now there’s a before) the thought of picking

apples rises. An orchard of drivelling rain travelling

down each arm whenever I reached into the rain-

soaked branches. Fixing the bullet—the bolt lifting

and shunting—I balance on a knee. In the sights, the

animal’s ears twitch and I nearly pike (blanched

hesitation) It eyes me—a bored stare up the barrel. I

give permission. The gun fires, the force absorbed like

phosphorous and carbon, gelignite to bone. The roo

falls. The mob turns. Lopes towards the trees. Despite

the air, the wet in my eyes, the cloud gets in, brown

and dirty, and my breath judders in front of me.

                                                                       S.J. Finn