Bio
Joyce Parkes is published in Axon, Plumwood Mountain Journal, Westerly, Overland, Meanjin, The Best Australian Poems 2005 (UQP) and in similar publications dedicated to literature and the arts, in Australia and in seven other countries.
Joyce Parkes
Of Cathexis and the Senses
(In memory of L.J.S. and M. v.d. S.)
When is a wave a greeting, a farewell, a brow
moving to address convention, a plea for help,
a ridge of water in oceans linking lands,
harbouring caves, tents, dwellings, incandes–
cence? Her grandmothers, one with a light
the other with a dark skin, both had red blood
in their veins - both grandmothers tended
to stretches of grass and grain, expecting
their granddaughter to consult the map of
moiety on her sojourn to and from other
countries, converse with cells of sobriety
and genes of passion, lusting to articulate
critiques and questions flourishing
in the province of cathexis and the senses.