Between Cigarettes and Silence
By Bradley Bradley
Published 9 December 2024
My mother died of a cigarette in one hand
my voice in the other
to a detached handle
a closed door
a drawn blind
tight against the drywall
from a silence
when the phone rung
to an unopened pile of words
when I knew the shout, “shut-up” was always knocking.
My grandmother raised me from Mount Druitt.
She taught me to jump the train line, squeeze between the graffiti, the wired fence
the smell of tar, the greasy takeaway, to the side street of her saggy seat, porched, unsprung.
My grandmother raised me. She was a cigarette, empty beer bottles,
a baked bean stain on threadbare foam. She was the Datsun with no rear mirror,
Dodgy blinds, when hot air was a fan of summer.
I love that she raised me to be tall enough to sit in her front seat
like a cigarette held between fiery red smackers, flicked behind the grey ash,
stomped in stubs, kicked my arse, kicked the butts beneath her feet.
My grandmother held her final drag,
its heat still glowing in my cheek -
raised for the pavement.
Each year as part of Poetry Month, we run the 30in30 Writing Competition. Writers from across the continent are encouraged to enter a 3-line poem or excerpt to win a book by a contemporary Australian poet every day of the month. Three poets were selected from over 2,400 entries to develop their poem further with editorial support from Red Room Poetry staff, and paid publication of their poem. In 2024, the winners of the competition were Kathryn Reese, Natalia Figueroa Barroso and Bradley Bradley.
Bradley drew from his winning excerpt to craft this commissioned poem. Check out the prompt and poem that inspired him below.
Write a poem to your grandmother and tell her why you love her
Dominic Guerrera
#30in30 writing prompt
