These concentric grooves,

gene-tooled, precise

and rutted deep,

prove the quickening moves

to a geometry of ocular lies,

an illusory rib-boned sweep.

The shaved cut of curve

keys the genius of art,

but it is abstract, arithmetric.

Where is the smouldered urge,

the peat-fire of the heart

burning on a slow wick?

This is Venus. Struggling from mud.

Tumbling on a wild tide.

All the lust is in the dying.

The metaphor beaches on the flood.

Placid? Venus? On a wide

line of tide an oxymoron, drying.

Pete Hay grew up on the north-west Coast of Tasmania, and has worked as schoolteacher, storeman, truckie’s offsider, youth worker and political adviser at both state and federal tiers of government. But it was as an academic in Victoria and Tasmania that he has spent most of his waged life. He retired as Reader in Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania at the end of 2008, and turned his focus to creative writing. He has published multiple volumes of poetry and personal essays, and has twice been shortlisted for the Tasmanian Book of the Year. His book of essays, Forgotten Corners: Essays in Search of an Island’s Soul, was named the Small Press Network 2020 Book of the Year.