Turning 30

My life spreads
in front of me
on three panels
of canvas.

Opulent gold threads
struggle
as shadows
smite the grasses,
leaving bruises in deep purple.

Eyes stare out
lidless
at an angled world.
My hands feel the walls
in a creeping darkness
and cannot find an exit.

I am surrounded
by bodies
looming about me,
not touching, but
filling the air, pressing
it away from me.

Eyes glint down
and disapproval haunts.

^

Biography

Dawn Bruce, a Sydney poet, has been widely published throughout Australia in literary magazines, journals, anthologies and newspapers, such as Hermes, Hecate, Poetrix, Newcastle Herald.She has won many poetry prizes and read her work on Sydney radio.During the last few months she ventured into cyber space and had her work accepted by many online magazines including Susquehanna Quarterly, Niederngasse, Mentress Moon, Poetry.com. Dawn Bruce is the co-ordinator of a poetry workshop and study group called Somerset Poets. They have recently won an award in a FAW comp. and their first anthology, 'Outside Looking In' was published December 2000 by Kellyryan Press.