fiction excerpt: the turkeys

published in island online

by the shearing shed with its tin roof and creaking greasy walls,

she thinks of the colours of the land, the colours of her memories, the brown mice brown snakes brown water browned skin the red sky red kangaroos red road her burnt cheeks; and the cream because of the wheat: so much endless crop unravelling into the horizon like fingers, tilting under heavy wind, and because of all those dirty sheep. she thinks how she thought of the land as hers, the sweeping plains and arid skies, how she grew up and left and learnt of oldness and history and spirit, how the gum trees whisper through cracked lips of a truth she understands now as only how little she understands /