In a Library

We pick our way through the stacks

and fall across the floor like sunlight,

giggling and hushing each other

on the rotting carpet.

Set on our spines,

we pick lint out of our hair

and inspect the mould that blooms

across the ceiling tiles.

Your smile widens like playing cards

spread across a velvet table,

and you stack your teeth against mine,

palming the front pockets of my jeans.

I watch your breath in silent vigil

against the tide

and the whale call in my chest.

You know this smile.

Ella Kratzer is a poet, short story writer and professional hobbyist from the Northern Rivers. She’s a fan of the gory and gruesome but doesn’t mind the odd mushy romance, as long as there’s a tonne of flesh-eating metaphors. Ella is studying a BA in creative writing and popular musicology at UQ, and is a 2023 recipient of the Kingshott-Cassidy Poetry Award Scholarship. She is currently Jacaranda X Underground Theatre’s second Writer-In-Residence.