Monique Lyle
Monique Lyle is a DCA candidate with the writing centre at Western Sydney University. She is currently completing her first manuscript, The Park, which explores her experiences growing up in Sydney Housing Commission in the 90’s. Recently her work has appeared in Overland, Flash Cove, Otoliths, Plumwood Mountain and also Dance Research.
a shark
when
i
found am
out
in the garden half
dead
in the weeds
half
floating
in
a pond you
think
of pigeons
and flutter
bies in
over grown grass
field you
think of a
fly
landing on damp.
if a
little
girl is
all alone left
there
will be no
eat there will be
no
sucksuck
there
won’t be any water melon. there
only
will be
tiny hand tiny
arm
tiny
cock roach crawling. by time the
mary
there get
it
will be late too—
eve taken will
have
already
apple cleaned
pinstripe
suit even gorgeous
lips.
when you are
in
an
over grown field with a
bee
on your
knee
and stinging nettle. when
a
purple flutter
bye
lands on a
yellow
dandelion
flower another
bug will
be
there with it
when a
root pushes
into
wet
brown mud, a
small green leaf
lives under
water.
when a small
green
ball
attaches itself
to
underwater, a blue
fish
lands on a
shark
flattening itself
out onto it when a red
critter
scurries through the ocean.
i
her
saw
jagged in the
garden an
out
distance coming one
zig
zag
arm another
zig
zag
leg another
coming
close
in
swimming
zone
i
a shark and
you here
no