A Poem by Jude Neale

We Sing Ourselves Back

We are born singing,
orchid air in freefall beneath our trapeze feet.
We open our jaws wide,
balloon our throats
swing ancestral anaconda notes down
across the emerald city.
We dance antic swags, ellipses, somersaults,
wound the air
with our bass, treble, bellowing melodies.
The women go first
and the men sing back in waves,
above the recitative.
And later with dusty feet,
we wander like leathery kites
shipwrecked with words.
Wanting again to float above it all,
we drill underground instead
to look for our voice,
deep inside the belly of the whale.
We sing ourselves back
and become once again whole.

Jude Neale was shortlisted for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Ireland), The  International Poetic Republic Poetry Prize (U.K),The Mary Chalmers Smith Poetry Prize  (UK), The Wenlock International Poetry Prize(UK), the RCLA short story and poem competition and she was nominated for the Canadian ReLit Award and the Pat Lowther Award for her book ‘Only the Fallen Can See’.