new year’s day – by Mitch Cave

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY

we eat on mute ice

melting in the sink

and i forget how i am

shaped like a door knuckle

knocking on the door we 

untangle fairy lights and 

position the clock five 

minutes fast so that we 

are never late you say 

when the birds are absent

i somehow become more 

quieted but you speak to

birds in your sleep and 

in the morning i will

have to remove your skin 

from mine with a bar of 

soap i begin to think in

braille you can hear 

my thoughts i rest my 

skull against the weight 

of your beating chest 

and begin to forget 

what you said to me

again and again and

Image: Marcus Wallis - Unsplash


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Mitch Cave

Mitch Cave is a writer living on Gubbi Gubbi country. His work has appeared in literary magazines nationally and in the USA/UK. His debut poetry collection, How to Eat Fire and Why, was published in 2022 by Rabbit, and an earlier version of the manuscript was a finalist for the Subbed In Chapbook Prize.

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