From the Bowels of Molluscs

we swim in the mouth

of the river

we swim between

the lines of our words 

swallowed whole

by the weight

of our becoming

Carlie Daley lives in one of the most flood-prone locations in Australia, where she wrestles time to write alongside work and solo parenting. She has had pieces published in The Long Paddock, Southerly, Gargouille, Capsule, Frostwriting, northerly,  and the Australian Poetry Anthology. She was the winner of the City of Stonnington Literary Festival—Poetry Open Age—Non Stonnington prize in 2018 and published her first chapbook, Blood & Bone, with Dancing Girl Press in 2019. Her second chapbook, Alluvium, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2023.