Conversing with broken things – by Lesh Karan

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY

of bone 

                                                    the plate was made 

eons before  

                           I was born 

                                                               thrown  

                      onto terra firma   

                                                                                    the plate shattered 

                                            some star-sharp 

    some milk teeth 

                                                                some ash-dust 

                                                                         the shards scattered  

                                              fell 

into cracks 

                            like canyons 

                                                                               what landed  

                                                                                       near 

                                                                                 my tracks 

                                                        I filigreed 

across a peel of bark— 

                                               flimsy 

                                                                  flexible 

                                             as skin— 

      placed it in the vessel 

                                                                     of my kintsugi heart  ▼

Image: Guggger - Wikicommons


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Lesh Karan

Lesh Karan is a Melbourne-based poet, writer and editor. Her work has appeared in Best of Australian Poems, Cordite, Island, Meanjin, Overland, Rabbit, Strange Horizons and other publications. She has won the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize and been shortlisted for the Judith Wright and South Coast Writers Centre poetry awards. A former pharmacist and medical writer, Lesh holds a Master of Creative Writing, Publishing and Editing from the University of Melbourne.  

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