Kweensland. 2.
By Ellen van Neerven
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.
