Kweensland. 2.

Ever since the queen died, the 180-year homestead on the map

is haunting you, sitting next to a teardrop

body of water you don’t recognise.

At the end of her seventy-year-long reign, there will be

no toasting. Seamus Heaney beside your bed.

The namesake of QUEENSLAND is QE11’s great-grandmother.

The name has enabled every violence.

Your grandparents lived under an Apartheid system.

While you trace the line, you privilege feeling over accuracy.

Seventy years ago your mother was about to be born.

All your courage comes from her, her mother, and

all the mothers before her.

It is these Kweens that you invite onto this map

you’ve cleansed, hoping they find their way home.