Kathryn Reese
I had been so long tonguing at flowers—bluebells, honeysuckle and the potted pink cyclamen—no one was surprised when I started into the forest. The truth is, the marigolds by the garden gate left me dissatisfied. All pollen and borders and bitterness. The butterfly bush whispered to me of wild, damp places and the dandelion blew a wish for me to follow. That’s the last thing I recall.
It is hard to know which fork to take when you wake surrounded by sclerophyll. I pressed my lips to grey, smooth skin and came away tasting dust. This tree was nothing but bones, bowed and hollow. As I turned to go, a tangled tendril of strangle-vine teased at my wrist: a curl, an invitation. She tasted of mist, of purple and cardamom. I succumb
and slip deeper, lower to the earth. I peel my first lichen, salty as the sea dissolved in ash. I sample eggs of snails, liquid yolk in agarose jelly shell. In the fold between buttress roots are three types of moss: mint, lemon-scent and liquorice. And if you delve beneath the ironbark’s armour, caress enough layers, chew through the fibre and savour the must, that old tree yields amber, still flowing, still sticky, still sweet.
Kathryn Reese is a poet living on Peramangk land in Adelaide, South Australia. She works in medical science and enjoys solo road trips, hiking and chasing frogs to record their calls for science. Her poems can be found in The Engine Idling, Epistemic Lit, Kelp Journal and Australian Poetry Journal. She was a winner in Red Room Poetry’s #30in30 competition 2024.
Long Trek Press 
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