Debbie Lim was born in Sydney. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies including regularly in the Best Australian Poems series (Black Inc.), Contemporary Australian Poetry and Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (both Puncher & Wattmann) as well as journals such as Cordite, Mascara, Island and Magma (UK). Her prizes include the Rosemary Dobson Award and she was commended in the Poetry Society UK’s 2013 National Poetry Competition. Her chapbook is Beastly Eye (Vagabond Press). She is working on a full-length collection.

The Year of Contagion 

In times of virus
each cough hangs
visible,
              a dark afterthought.
Every touch
leaves its tingling
                       on the skin— 

Still air can turn
treacherous.
Better whipping winds.
It remains unofficial
whether tears are effective
transmitters.
Certainly coalescence:
                               they keep urging us 

to move on. We wear our days
with a new caution,
                      learn different ways
of caring.
Strangely naked,
riddled with porosities,
                       we trail microclimates
like small habitable clouds.
Our peripheries burn.