The Yabbies
I am drowning under the river red gum, slipping between mud and silt—who can tell the difference? In this half-light, the river seems ungrateful, it slides its jaw against my feet.
Yes, I have made worse decisions before.
Tonight I decided to slip beneath your forgiveness. I made this declaration as your knee brushed against mine, as you gnawed at your straw; the pause as your chipped tooth scraped against plastic and accused me of inertia. Again, I failed to divert this moment into something more.
My pulse intertwined with the worst guy at the pub, slumped on a barstool past the curve of your ear. He was muttering just lay off, I’ve had a hell of a day into his fourth Pilsner, barking oh fuck off at the crawling figures on the TV.
I could go for a beer. I don’t drink beer.
His spittle snakes down the rough slabs of bark. I hear his grunts in the humming earth. We eke out what we can get.
This is the season of crushed dragonflies.
The woman across the river has her lips pressed together like an envelope she is struggling to rip open.
I saw her prophesied in the posture of the woman at the back of the pub, head in hands, sucking on a lemon rind.
Now she huddles in the mud. Her teeth clack like clamshells—you cannot shake her.
She is not that good-looking but… there is something in the way she scrapes against the riverbed. Her shoulder blades fan. Her skin is electric. She settles above the crustacean’s head.
I can hear her almost, halfway—
“Every man is a yabby, and you are the current above his head.
He cannot tell you the difference between fisherman
and moonlight,
between nursing hope and giving way
to the pulling.
He has yabby-sick in his mouth,
feeding on dead and decaying matter—
this is one joke.
Another:
he is caught by a National Geographic photographer,
who tells him to pose chin up, like you’re tasting something real good,
and so he places his claws against his head.
He will reach out to you for clarity,
to cleanse him of the filth
of an ephemeral waterway
that he could never outpace,
to enclose him in something gentler, ready to yield.
You will find him in the grotty pub bathroom,
curled in the toilet bowl.
You will keep him ungodly.
He is a good catch.
He will squirm half-realised under your thumb.”
Designed by Jessica Watson
