Golden
Thank you eyes, for opening onto a new day, every day, for fifty years. For blinking before the camera, for allowing a little spray of ocean in, or a storm, when that sinking feeling came, or when my babies were born.
Please accept my apologies that certain images — hurting animals, whichever war — found their way into the picture, again. Thank you feet, for putting one after another along shorelines, new countries and long
country paths. I like how you botheredto sometimes pause, sorry for all the con- crete, landmines and shoes. To hands, many thanks, for touching many things, and not flinching. I don't know how you managed
when the object was sharp, or angry, or hot but you did. I hope you enjoyed a season of sun and sand between fingers, the feel of another's occasional flesh, I hope the reasons for clenching a fist against injustice, or love
were real. My gratitude to spine for holding me up, your sufferings did not go unnoticed. If I asked too much, if the task of unfolding day after day caused you to buckle and twistI regret. Thank you legs, for lurching your
burden from moment to moment, for taking that extra step. Forgive me for the backward directions, forgive all the sudden braking. Sometimes the map is wrongly rendered.Sometimes the lines are laid upside down.
The world turns strangely, her head on herknees, her brain in a vacuum of please don'tand please. We look to the hugeness andfeel microscopic: yes hello! happy birthday!goodbye! Our ship becomes sea, no land
for miles, but I digress. Yet let me just say: I am indebted to mind, you kept me going when everything else was broken or tired or stalled. I admire your hunger for knowing. Thank you especially for closing your doors
that time. For the music, the music, through which I survived the sunken, most capsized of years, I thank you ears, and call on you to pardon the propaganda, small-talk, lies.And finally, for constancy, for braveness in
the darkest of places, I address my brightestthing: you beat forever, deep down withinme, striking the wrong along with the right.What is me, what is you, no man shall part:never quit, sweet drum, my dear, sweet heart.
Jordie Albiston is a Melbourne poet. Her sixth collection the sonnet according