Dingo in a World Heritage Site
I won’t forget her on the beach – fur the colours of sand.
We wouldn’t have spotted her were it not for the jiggle
of her gait, the turn of her head with ears pricked,
the spine’s taut bow and torque of her hocks.
A sand forest creature, skeletal as the hunger
of the shark-infested ocean. But the strand has become
a speedway for off-road vehicles, where shoals of fishermen
stand in surf. Snuffling for their throw-outs she looked down
her muzzle at swarms of humans occupying the island.
Everywhere signs warned us to keep clear of her kind
and to keep watch over the children. With binoculars
through the windscreen I saw teats on her underside
just as she turned tail to trot inland before
vanishing like mirage into a sand blow.
Rebecca Gethin has written 5 poetry publications and 2 novels. She was a Hawthornden Fellow and a Poetry School tutor. Her poems are published in various magazines and anthologies. Vanishings was published by Palewell Press in 2020. She won the first Coast to Coast pamphlet competition with Messages. Her next pamphlet will be published by Maytree Press in 2024. She blogs (very) sporadically at www.rebeccagethin.wordpress.