Telegram – by Natalie Susak

ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY

In this language / I am trying / to carve / a home / for us.
This old wind / raises my hair / to my face / grazes the hair / of my arm.

Molim, I say, the way / they taught me / with tongue stopped / at the end.
I hate / to beg, but / when I search for words / I call to them / as if over

vast distances. / They come to me / like ghosts
seeping out of moss / covered rocks.

I pay / by word / by working my mouth / around each sound.
To be speaking / was like that

making things take shape / with tongue / with jezik.
Can you make out / the words / I am saying?

Do you read me / do you read?
Uncovering / the shape of things / their sedentary / souls

the knot / in the throat / when the r / must be rolled,
the smooth overpass / of stones / the glottal / stop.

I have flown invisible over the trees
through an amputated / silence / stop.

I have heard jackal’s cries / breaking
over middle distance / blue,

seen live centipedes / twitching / under cathedrals / of leaves.
In here / it is okay / everything / breathes

and when a cicada crawls / over the back / of my hand
it is so jade green / I want to see it again / in your language.

Image: Bernardo Lorena Ponte - Unsplash


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Natalie Susak

Natalie Susak is a poet from Sydney, NSW. She has earned a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in English and an MA Creative Writing from the University of Sydney. She served as an editor for AVENUE from 2022-23. Her work has appeared in Cordite, AVENUE, and Free the Verse.

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