2005 School Magazine

Original Works

Original Works

Your shoulders cradled my sky and you cradled my shoulders. Icon for the child, you renounced daytime discipline for matchmaking those forged first touches. Later, the sweet torment of aspirations that we shrouded in wedding tulle and baby talc, just to spite sensibility. Just to entertain the aunties. Just to parlay over potato peeling; to cross-fire between courses. So you could paint unassuming martyrdom. Those we trapped in Glory’s metal hinges. Say anything if it will halt the numbing, molasses motion that withers Glory’s memory now. I’m not one for idle reminiscences, just because words are all there is, save the token lace doily or some flimsy skins of photographs. Everything’s there, enshrined in fifteen bucks of pine. Don’t swallow olive pips when they could be graciously spat out. You taught me that. Like truth, it’s an acquired taste you don’t need. I just wish a swish of satin- covered courage might break the barriers of my pride. Then I might admit my grief for your unfeigned apathy for me. So, call this uncalled for and call it a day. Call the Glory box sentimental if that fabricates comfort, but these are the words that gratify my page. They are inscribing the illusions I found wrongly coloured Enticing revision by you, so politically able. Flaunting frivolity at the expense of your fable As I open our Glory Box, and lay you: my creation, on the table.

Glory Box

Pull a photo from its backing, just to test if you still want it Even though light shines through it Augmenting the injury Thinning your picture’s skin, its unsown sepia Convicting all its colourings as counterfeits Glance accusingly downwards, if you must, but please promise not to be offended by insult to poetic aesthetic. There’s no point in begrudging words when they’re only passing remarks. They’re just one simulation; lyrical but clinical and intentionally cynical. Because as everyone knows, one shouldn’t politicize emotion; it’s just not cricket. It’s tacky, “thank you”. So here’s to humble suspicion that we’ll paint illusions just to cringe at their time-cheapened vision. For a mother, I’ll spare the fuss that I know you deem unnecessary. Please promise just to curl your fingers ‘round the wooden box that leaves moon craters in our carpet to remind you where it’s been. Remember how we varnished it when I might have called you ‘Mummy’? Here lies the Madonna. Yes, you: once without religion or crows’ feet in your face to occupy your chitchat, like now. Instead, skin some tarnished taffeta of fibres indiscriminate.

Georgina Horsburgh (12O)

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1. Charlotte Durack (12B) 2. Phoebe Lau (12B) 3. Phoebe Black (11G)

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Brisbane Girls Grammar School 152

School Magazine 2005 153