Live Encounters Poetry & Writing Volume Three Nov-Dec 2026.
Mismatch, poem by Libby Sommer.
Mismatch
i)
I WATCH: At the restaurant I can’t help but look at his mouth—small yellowing teeth—thin lips. A grain of rice clings to his cheek. I wonder whether to tell him, but it falls away before I decide.
We drive back through streets already emptied of the afternoon. “Will you come in?” he asks when I drop him to his front door. “No thank you. Early start tomorrow.”
far beyond effort,
eagles
at sunset
ii)
I LISTEN: “I used to go to the theatre,” he says as he lowers himself into the passenger seat of my car, uses the lever to slide the seat back. “But not since I lost my wife.”
“I hope it isn’t too cramped for you?”
“No problem. I used to drive a sports car. I’m used to being squashed.”
At the theatre I can’t help but notice his sniffing, a regular involuntary sniff. And then there he is, asleep. He tips onto one armrest, then the other, drifting towards me. I brace for the weight of him.
short night—
rain-clouds forming
in the west
iii)
I DRIVE: Taking him home in the rain, rhythmic waves of water sluice under the wipers. He says: “There are more accidents on roads on rainy days. People get frustrated.”
At the crossroads, a cyclist appears, cycling fast down the hill on the wrong side of the road—and without lights. She bursts from darkness, a great black bird, all wing and momentum just dodging the windscreen. Then she’s gone, banking around the corner into a well-lit road.
He’s the first to take a breath: “That was close.”
And—”I won’t ask you to come in.” His hand on the car door. “I know you’ve got an early start tomorrow.”
departing
by an unused road—
near miss
© Libby Sommer
Libby Sommer, award-winning Australian Poet & Author, has published seven books (five novels, two poetry collections). Her new collection of poetry, poetic prose, and candid street photographs, ‘The Rub of Urban Life’, is forthcoming from 5 Islands Press in 2027. More than 100 of her stories and poems published in literary journals, including regular contributions to Quadrant Magazine. Her debut novel, ‘My Year With Sammy’ won First Prize, The Society of Women Writers Fiction Book Award 2016. This year she won First Prize, Banjo Paterson Contemporary Poetry Prize 2026. She likes to tell people she finds inspiration in anything that moves or makes a noise.