My pulse is behind my eyes,

my frontal temporal lobe,

in searing slow motion grains of truth.

Everything is fine. Not fine. Fine. Not Fine.

Fin.

 

Water sluices to a snap, cold and wistful

over my lidded eyes. Hazel,

if you're wondering.

The chill-wishing tropical breeze makes me

goosebump - aware that I am not

the centre. I am not even the diameter –

that would mean I am the boundary.

 

I am nebulous, shoving in the circle,

unaware of others' bothers until we crash like cells

mutating each others' behaviour.

I am thought experiment: that's what humans do.

Smash some outrage up against the glass

and see what slides down, red, droplet-like.

My white silkie chook protests at the back door;

my lateness is the limit of her patience. She will be fed.

 

I?

I... will not. 

 

The suffering of others is the soul-call of grace:

the limitation of humanity is the pulse.

 

Bio: Kathy Shortland-Jones is a writer, teacher and mother living on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean Territories. She writes short stories, creative non-fiction and poetry. Kathy's poetry won the Red Room Poetry Forest competition in 2022, was longlisted in the 2025 Ros Spencer Poetry Competition and was Highly Commended in the Poetry Object competition in 2019. Her poetry has been published in Creatrix 70 (2025), Meuse (2025) Brushstrokes Anthology (2025), Big Screens Project for the 2025 Perth Poetry Festival and the Grieve Anthology (2023). Her prose has been Highly Commended in the Peter Cowan short-story competition (2019) and the KSP Little Black Dress ‘Spooky Stories' competition (2021). She is currently studying a Masters in Creative Writing through Edith Cowan University.