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