apparently
it’s up to us. it’s our job. to ring the offices of every politician we can. if any are taking calls. unlike the office of the Australian PM. if any are responding to emails. unlike the office of the PM. it’s up to us. to save the planet. to throw our bodies before bulldozers. to save the trees. to march the streets. first making sure there’s no. law against it. because free speech. can come at a cost. its’s up to us. to split the rubbish into. different bins. even though the recycling business is slow. even though pallets of plastic and paper. build-up in barn-sized badlands. with nowhere to go. since developing countries said no. to taking away. our mess. it’s up to us. even though. even though we. voted with considered conviction. careful conscientiousness. set store by what the politicians said. their lies. about ‘managing’ oil refineries. coal mines. gas lines. about banning the fouling. of water where fish. should swim. the depleting of lakes. the re-directing of rivers. away from business beneficiaries. and their cattle. with hazardous hooves. we set store. in what they. said. they would do. to protect against. the receding of. icebergs the rising. of oceans the expansion of. deserts. species extinction. displacement of people. some drowning. some starving. some watching their houses. blow away like it’s Kansas. as though. the wicked witch has stolen. the red shoes. all colours of shoes…they lied. now we are the ones. it’s up to us. only us. to do our bit. to do it alone. to shun plastic bags. bottles. clingwrap. poisonous products. to choose ‘eco-businesses’. source our laundry detergent. in the wash of capitalist greenwashing. without relevant rules. or laws to ensure. eco claims are washed in truth. we do what we can. willingly. we do it reliably. if not increasingly dejectedly. burdened by 1.5 billion tonnes of emissions. brewed and spewed by Australian coal and gas mining. per year. humiliated by our place in the hierarchy. as the third. largest. fossil. fuel. exporter. in the world. insulted by the insufficiency of our climate policy. its silence on. fossil production and ejections. because addressing the climate crisis. is up to us. apparently.
Note: statistics are from The Australia Institute’s petition ‘No new fossil fuels’
sister
on the table. your heart (my heart). defeated
like a balloon inflated. too many times
lub dub lub dub
pictures processed. with a family recipe
chemical concoctions. group portraits.
forecasts. of our futures
next generation. launched certain of
of the images we’d been given
lub dub lub dub
but grew to
see were less
reliable. than
we’d been told
questions discouraged
about the scope of the framing. or the focus
slightly off
maybe. sister.
lub dub lub dub
the blown-out bits
where glare obscured
the detail is
where. we should
have looked for ourselves
Ana Constantinou is a cis woman living on unceded Bunurong land. Her interest is exploring what’s behind, inside, underneath and in-between. She is an emerging writer whose work was a ‘Finalist’ in the fRiction Poetry Prize Fall 2025, ‘Commended’ in the Ada Cambridge Biographical Prose Prize 2025, longlisted in the Liquid Amber Press Poetry Prize 2024, published in Cordite #14, Wild Whispers, Pure Slush, and is shortly to be published in Her Beauty & Her Terror.
Locative Magazine 