Jazz Fechner-Lante, Ellipsis Poetry
Out Of Sight
The Food Bank van is parked
In the carpark of the church
Tucked away nice and safe
No one wants to be seen needing help
In this small town with rich neighbours
The heat of the summer
Burning through your skin
They sell sunscreen here too
It’s warm in its packaging
Melting in the sun it’s meant to
Protect you from
But despite popular belief
Not everything here is free
The volunteers hand you a bag
And let you covet the food
That will be on your table
For the next two weeks
“All up, that’s seven dollars”
Well there goes ten litres of petrol
We learnt to take every free meal
That was offered to us
With or without that soft pitying smile
I wish I could thank the people
Who cooked those frozen meals
Donating them to kids
Who had no idea where to find food anywhere else
But we keep it quiet
In a town as small as this
Can’t let the rich families know
That we’re subsisting on charity alone
Volunteering shouts you free meals galore
And lets you avoid home, alone
No internet, no air conditioning
Fills your heart as well as your stomach
I did everything I was physically able to do
To keep me busy and not think
About where that next meal just might be
Image: ‘Jay’s Park’, 2025, photograph. Source: Jazz Fechner-Lante
Jay Pretends
Jay can’t play outside today
It’s too bright
And the sunscreen bottle
Is too empty
If they got burnt out there
There was nothing in the house
To calm those hot red marks
They knew this from last week
Itching at the still flaking skin on their nose
They will wait till tomorrow
Where they will use the free
Sunscreen at school
Because they know
That asking Mum to buy sunscreen
Will just make her worried
Even asking her for a snack
Makes her worried these days
So they keep that need quiet
Just like the hole in their shoe
It’s definitely not bad enough
To bring up to her yet
Instead of playing outside
They go to sit with their mother
And asks her one of the few questions
That they know it is safe to ask
“Can we go to the library?”
She smiles in relief
They didn’t need money for that
And they really didn’t need money
For the big hug that Jay wraps their mother in
They sit together for a while
Pretending it’s not getting close to dinner
While Jay also pretends
That the old sunburn doesn’t still itch
That they’re not on edge each day
About everything that could ever hurt their mother
Including any word that could come out of their own mouth
So tonight they stay silent
Hoping that tomorrow is a safer day
Jazz Fechner-Lante
jasmine.fechnerlante98@gmail.com
Acknowledgements: Jazz Fechner-Lante lives and works on Kaurna land and would like to acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land and that sovereignty was never ceded. Jazz would also like to acknowledge the other half of Ellipsis Poetry, Pam Makin, for her continued support and feedback throughout the writing process.
About the author:
Jazz is a queer and disabled self-taught poet and artist, specialising in spoken word and photography, with a sideline in fiber arts. They are co-organiser of Ellipsis Poetry that runs a spoken word open mic and other poetry events on Kaurna Land (Adelaide CBD). Their poetry mainly takes on themes of their lived experience of queerness, disability and mental health.