Black Cockatoos by Katelin Farnsworth
After the burning, there is suffocating stillness. My family are fixed to the land, shuffling forwards, backwards. Dad drinks coffee from a paper cup, talks about the rebuild in a strange voice. Later, when everyone has gone and I can see yellow leaves on the trees, I watch the black cockatoos. They still fly, pressing into pale skies we cannot reach.
Katelin Farnsworth is a writer from the Dandenong Ranges. She has a degree in Creative Writing from Deakin University and was recently shortlisted for the Penguin Literary Prize 2020.