Pigs in Space!

By Olivia Camillin | 14 May 24

Pigs in Space!
foreign to them
green vest, secured arms, unheld hands
is our resistance to pain;
suffering, other than our own,
wet grass, wet microphones,
strained voices through the airy colander;
leaves on trees or trees on leaves?
paper cut lips
paper flyers – death by a thousand
autumnal rain drops on red brick;
blood plastic zips
tents over tired bodies
at the end of another tired day.

1769

A speculative narrative that flips the history of European colonisation by imagining a reversal: a seafaring people from a southern island travelling north to colonise a new frontier (a year before Cook got to Australia).