The Sixteenth Brolga HOLLY RINGLAND
K
ath walks a lap of the gallery at the beginning of her shift. She watches the morning light change the hues of one of the paintings it’s her job to oversee: sixteen brolgas, their graceful wings shimmering silver, blue, smoke-coloured as they arc and dance towards a grove of gum trees, a pipeplaying girl leading their way. The girl’s legs are blurred in metamorphosis with one of the brolga’s bodies. Behind them a pastel oyster-skin sky rises.
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