Sam Morley

Drowning with two kids

You find out water is fire
that it wants to burn 
every bit of air 
cloak your throat.
There are currents in words
arms fast becoming legs 
slapping the sheen 
of the world as it slips
through spangled hands.
Kids dog paddle 
a chubby fierceness 
in their faces, pulling 
us all down the acidic
search for a pontoon. 
Among the invasiveness 
everything that was clear
is now unsalted darkness.

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Sam Morley is a poet whose work has been published in a number of journals including Cordite, Red Room Poetry, Canberra Times, The Australian, Overland, Westerly, Southerly, Plumwood Mountain, takahē (NZ), and Antipodes (US), and has appeared on noted shortlists including the ACU Poetry Prize and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He is the 2022 recipient of the Tina Kane Emergent Writer Award at the Mildura Writer’s Festival. His debut collection, Earshot, is out now through Puncher and Wattmann.