Supatra Walker was born in Thailand, attended school in New Zealand and has lived in the Northern Territory. She recently graduated with a BA in English and Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle and is now a full-time student in their BA (Hon) in English and Creative Writing. She writes poetry, short stories, memoir and essays. She owns 3 guitars and 4 ukuleles and plays them all enthusiastically. She is the proud mother of two gorgeous young women and a passionate Greenie. She has recently moved to the Hunter Valley to build a north facing house that will eventually overlook a thriving permaculture garden.

Gai Kiah

I begin pre-dawn, before
the sun’s alchemy transforms the Morton Bay figs
into giant feng shui money trees of gold and citrine. An uncommon feeling
had stolen into my dreams.
I want to be at my desk, pencil in hand to capture the images
the metered words whispering and coiling beyond my tongue.
Pen won’t do.
Computer won’t do.
There is something that keystrokes can’t capture.
I sharpen my pencil and begin to write.

               My hand is doula and letter
by letter
words are birthed naked defenceless     like wild things caught
in a snare in the glare of scrutiny   they string out
or jam up   struggling
for  a place  on the  page
for space     in a    line
for the chance to become part
of a whole
something
much bigger than themselves something
more metered than syllables something
as round as vowels
something more
percussive than consonants, the something
on the landscape of my page that is something
more meaningful than nouns and something
more cohesive than syntax and so
                    so
much more than mere conjunctions         but
the shuffling and writing and erasing reminds me instead that
my handwriting is gai kiah: the indecipherable scratching
of a chicken.

There is no beauty in gai kiah. This is not the hand that writes thank you
letters or the inscription in birthday cards.
I study the geography of my sentences,
the mountains and valleys between the letters,
the tails and rivers and streams that hook and bend
or simply
end and
then I am reminded of a story my Thai kindergarten teacher
read to us about
the seven chickens who had flung themselves into a fire
in grief when their mother   was killed  and
fed to a wandering monk. Their souls cast out
onto the night sky became a    cluster of stars. I cried.

When asked why I was crying        I lied
and said I had a dog that died.
I didn’t know the Thai word for sad, you see.
I didn’t have a dog either.

But here’s the thing: I remember
this story because ก (gaaw) is the first letter in the Thai alphabet
and ก is for gai as
a is for apple.
I formed ก on the lines of my exercise book.
I erased my mistakes but
the eraser caught the edge of the paper.
Then I knew that the crumpled and corrugated ravines
of my page are testament to my farang-ness.
And so the ungainly row of กs
big, and small some missing their beaks  legs    splayed, stiff
ungainly and culturally crippled     march
lost,  jammed    and shambling up    and  down
the papery spurs,  through the miserable smears and over
the rubbery    charcoal worms
of the erased dead and into
the history of me.