Hall Street, Between the Wine Bar and KMart by Sumitra Singam
The back of a woman ahead of me, rounded shoulders, feathery strands of chocolate hair brushing the nape of a neck I thought was yours – your name half out my mouth before I remembered you were dead. I swallowed the rest and it was a fist in my throat. I pretended to cough until I had grounds for tears, doubled over. How stupid to want to die because someone else is. The woman didn’t go into the wine shop or K-Mart. She kept on until she’d rounded the corner, the summer sun beaming on all her breathing and walking.
Sumitra is a Malaysian-Indian-Australian coconut writing in Naarm/Melbourne. She travelled through many spaces to get there and writes to make sense of her experiences. She’ll be the one in the kitchen making chai (where’s your cardamom?). You can find her and her other publication credits on Bluesky: @pleomorphic2 and sumitrasingam.squarespace.com
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