Inverted, the stilled whiskey skyline
poured over cubed granite,
his glass raised to the window.
Cheers to harbour brine

sour fumes
choked streets

wharf engines churlishing.

He swallows the tide, city and all,
metallic chorus shrinking into dusk.
Was it always half empty?

A fresh glass.
He hunkers down with
streetlights and stars,
glow worms in the melting rocks.

Phillipa Trelford is an Australian poet living in northwest NSW. Her poetry has won the New England Award (Thunderbolt Prize, 2018) has been published in regional anthologies in Australia. In the UK, recent work has appeared in Password (2024) and Black Bough Poetry’s Sound and Vision anthology (2023).