34-37 Degrees South - 2023

She’s Not A Sun-Burnt Country
Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman
she’s a well-fed mongrel dog, a bitsa,
runt of the litter birthed first to a pair of strays
who locked like dingos and stayed that way until one let go
in death: a wave surging and rolling, sacrificing itself
on some shore somewhere with regular monotony;
not fashioned in the shape of one country or another, all flat plains
butted up against softly curving hills descending
into the odd valley or two where rain pisses down, or not, depending on
her seasonal climate, the sun definitely shining (sometimes) out of someplace
south of her border or so some have said, and that tongue
gibbering one language and stumbling over several others
with its unforked flicker.
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