Poetry by Sarah Vardaro

             ​youthfulc CC



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​On The Evening Before Sobriety 
                                                  Victoria River, Western Australia   

My toenails were painted black, his blue, we loved like that    
& clashed, lacquered & feathered across the continent

We had just met but he saw me, saw the whole road ahead 
the names of the trees, the lyrics to La Llorona, god

When the river flooded the road we stopped, he read Voss
& I drank whiskey in the roadhouse with stranded truckies

I knew how to spin a yarn, take the piss & take it back
tough but not tough enough, if I wasn’t so afraid I would -
 
Ocean forever, infuse my youth with salt in that ancient land
I wish I could have seen me carry the water & shake off the flies

But I was always itching to drift into unnamed deserts, strewn
with half-starved cattle & kangaroo ribcages pecked by crows 

How many kilos could I lose before — why 
can’t somebody love me for — & the birds — 

What did they sound like then? How can anyone keep 
burning in this rain? How long does it take to die?

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Ode to a Buckeye
                Salt Creek, Three Rivers, California

All year I tended to my love
ran my fingers through his greying hair
nudged snakes and newts to the roadside
and whispered to your knuckled branches 
I know what’s in there
bare and forever in bud for what are you
but the blooming and the unblooming? 
the long dormant pause of poisoned seeds
and the impending obscenity of light’s wheel
bursting white — I cannot remember
how long your flowers stay
I worry some mood will take me 
and sick sweet scent will not dust
my fingers enough, so I stroke
your green threads lined 
with tight furled fists and whisper 
I know what’s in there 
I caress everything in sight, prepare 
meals and tug on earlobes, this year 
when you come, I will be ready 
to love you

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Sarah Vardaro is an Australian poet. She is currently at work on a poetry collection that investigates the human relationship with the non-human world. Sarah has lived in California for the past decade where she works as a whitewater rafting guide.