please read Pauline – by Lily Woodberry

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY

B‍elow is an excerpt from Lily Woodberry’s poem, ‘please read Pauline’. Online formatting simply does not do it justice, so if you would like to read the entire poem - and you should; it’s brilliant - please open this PDF. You will be so happy you did!

‍if you lose my father

                           do not panic! he’s on the lawn

        toes turned out nose up  

the nose pokes

                                      indoors at the ten-minute mark

                     crikey you gotta see this

                                                   falling asleep as a child

     i often did panic because                                 

bedtime stories went

                         not only is the earth

                                                       spinning on its axis is

                                   orbiting the sun at

                                                                thirty kilometres per second is

                                  the entire Milky Way

                                                                   hurtling through the cosmos at 

                                    two point one million

                                                                     kilometres per hour[1] ▼

‍ ‍

[1] Fraknoi A (2007) ‘How fast are you moving when you’re sitting still?’, Astronomical Society of the Pacific

Image: Ken Cheung - Pexels

---

If you liked this piece, please share it. And please consider donating or subscribing so that we can keep supporting writers and artists.