Vocab List
By Fiona Wright
Published 20 October 2023
You’ll look at these photos one day, and think
how beautiful I was,
how lovely.
Your hair is tasseled (the edging
of furniture fabric), you have a face like a peach.
Pristine (in its original condition),
crossed at your black-socked ankles,
your wrists, you say stubbornly
(not responding to treatment)
the beautiful girl can’t be happy.
This will pass (sage green, affable,
benevolently). It will pass.
'Vocab List' was commissioned as part of an educational poetry program led by Sydney poets Fiona Wright and Tim Sinclair at Liverpool Girls High School. Students heard Fiona and Tim read their poems, and wrote poetic responses inspired by Red Room Poetry's project The Disappearing.