petrichor

Jemma Green

it’s the smell of dust after rain

breathing through Tibrogargan

Mountain circuit

on a Saturday morning hike with my sister

our cheeks, photographed side by side,

squashed like cream buns

 

it’s that wet, barrelling

scent of Dad’s mud-kicked boots at the front door,

and the dew-dressed 5am lawn

tire-grooved by the wheelie bin

he drags in before work

 

it’s the chalk-dust stones

pebbled along Mum’s driveway

catching in her bucket

as she clears the welling grooves

in sodden slippers

it’s the magpie-glide of wings

fluttering in a mossy birdbath,

the lazy funnel of water

gutter-sliding onto the rocks outside

my bedroom window

when I’m trying to sleep at night

 

it’s the storm in October

the January floods,

the feeling of memory

swimming through my limbs,

water-bleeding from yesterday

I am full of it, a nostalgia,

a contentment

a complete take-over:

petrichor

pet ri chor

p e t r i c h o r

Author: Jemma Green is an emerging writer and editor based in Meanjin/Brisbane who is currently in her final year of a BFA Creative Writing at QUT. With publications in Glass, Forget Me Not Press, FROCKET, and ScratchThat, she is the winner of a 2022 AWC writing contest and is a facilitator for a pop-up salon at the QWC’s 2024 QPoetry! event. Working fluidly between forms, she writes both prose and poetry, focusing on a combination of intimate emotion and a lush use of language.

Artist: Callum Ross-Rowland (he/him) is a Meanjin (Brisbane)-based creative writing student at QUT. He was the 2023 Literary Salon’s Photographer with his recent Diploma in Photo Imaging from Billy Blue (Torrens). He was recently shortlisted for Photographer of the Year in the Animal and Nature category and regularly photographs for Artful Heads magazine, where he captures portraits of artists from different mediums. Find him on Instagram @alrightatart. 

Edited by: Ashley Commens and E.L. Maloney