A spur of land surrounded by sea: divide the scene into wood, water, stone. You walked here to confront the way trust can decay like memory. Back where you started, there were red squares striped with grey on the mountain where pineapples grew, trees like green-robed figures, cone-shaped hills flecked with spirals & shallow ponds, moss-topped boulders. Landscapes become quiet when conversations dry up in gullies where the earth breaks away & in dark places where the moon is nowhere in sight. Friendships are features of the imagination that can crumble like sand though sometimes beautiful moments are embedded in layers of rock.

if the breeze blows a certain way 

the air is thick 
with orange blossom 

from that wild stand of trees 
by the creek that has become 
a place of doubtful water 

—Short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #3

Jane Frank

is an award-winning Brisbane poet, editor, and academic. Her most recent poetry collection, Ghosts Struggle to Swim, was published by Calanthe Press (Queensland, Australia) in May 2023, and a new collection—Gardening on Mars—will be published by Shearsman Books (Oxfordshire, England) in October 2025. Her work regularly appears in journals and anthologies in both Australia and internationally, most recently in 100 Poets, edited by Brian Purcell and Kit Kelen (Flying Islands, Australia, 2025), and The Memory Palace, edited by Lorette C. Luzajic and Clare MacQueen (Ekphrastic Editions, Canada, 2024).

Dr. Frank runs writing workshops, has appeared in a number of poetry podcasts, is Reviews Editor for StylusLit (an Australian online literary journal published bi-annually), and teaches at the University of the Sunshine Coast in south east Queensland.

Author’s website: https://janefrankpoetry.wordpress.com/about/