Earth Girls Are Easy
by Lisa Brockwell
That old song has it wrong, I don’t find them
easy. When I bring them back to my place
they won’t relax and let go. I offer
them a holiday, a chance to shrug
their spirits free from all that bile and bone,
that ribcage, lock and key. But they
are as heavy as a riverbed, a seam
of oil too deep to reach. I see their spark,
their potential—at the ski fields or when they’re dancing
they show me they want to be airborne. So I
try to help, to loosen the root so they can wiggle
their spirits like milk teeth, ignore the gore,
the dull tear and dive through that moment
of pulling free. But they never do, they get stuck
at the wiggling, endlessly. They prefer to sit
in the saddle of pain. I see their thoughts.
What if there’s no coming back? I can’t leave
my children, my friends, my cat. I could switch
to earth boys, some swear by them. But they
are just as clenched, and more into the spaceship
than me. Also ungrateful: when I drop
them home they complain about a stopped watch.
After spending a large chunk of her adult life in England, Lisa Brockwell now lives near Mullumbimby on the north coast of New South Wales, Australia, with her husband and son. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Bridport and Magma prizes, and this year she won second place in the Byron Bay Writers’ Festival poetry prize. She is working towards a first collection.