Tuesday Tomlins
Princess chateau hosts
Boys trespassing,
Heads towards turrets and toes to the streets.
The moat’s hollow cups them in sleep and
The drawbridge is a ceiling to the stars.
Grass pricks through nylon, pricks the skin.
Bank of the Loire rushes, dampening dirt,
Place of commune, place of old, place of
Wheat and corn and east and west river bisecting
The belt of homes and lights and beds.
Boys wake in the moat, restless.
A tap clack, tap clack against the stones.
One sound in stale air, clopping beat relentlessly measured.
Circling the moat, tap clack up the steps. Territorial.
Boys’ eyes pop, straining for unattainable light.
The stink descends, tap clack onto the drawbridge.
Goat (?) in the shadow wobbling on castle wall,
Hoofs(?) on planks as foulest odour funnels
Into the waterless moat, fogging up boys’ throats with
Faeces and foreign, (death, decay) eye-watering,
STENCH.
Boys stuff debris of clothes, books
Into sleeping bags slung over backs.
One socked foot to three bare feet they
Look to each other: two Irish boys seen too much,
But never felt darkness like walked over this little
French moat.
Boys scrabble up moat sides, bugs legs on jar glass.
Mud sends feet plunging; fingers find purchase on sunken roots.
Back over locked fence, the overwhelm of it all
Shields pain in knees and cuts on arms.
In the village they pant and peer at an empty drawbridge with
Portcullis teeth set tight to the grooves.
The path they left; deserted, still.
Into their lungs boys draw cold, river-stained, shitless, deathless air.
On their tongues, unspoken to each other:
Devil (?)
Written and illustrated by Tuesday Tomlins.
Tuesday Tomlins is an emerging Meanjin-based (Brisbane) writer in her last semester of study. She finds endless inspiration in the history and landscape of Australia, and channels this into much of her memoir and non-fiction. She is interested in exploring fear, humanity, and points of beauty. Recently, she has begun experimenting with micro-fiction, horror vignettes, and poetry.