Live Encounters Poetry & Writing June 2026
Elle Macpherson’s Beauty Machine, poems by Sally Breen.
Elle Macpherson’s Beauty Machine
I think my body wants vodka
the clean endless cut
my body does not want potions
designed to intervene
with my sad eyelids
my mom jeans face
interrupt a conversation about the past
already going on
inside my hair follicles
my sunset skin
without me
My body wants vodka
my body does not want
ex-model snake oil
saps for sale
from the tall, lonely tree
slippery limb elixirs
late-night hot chocolate ghost gums
rewind residues
dusty powder regrets
the unstoppable dangling bits of her
falling out of the internet
toned flexxy stick leg
curled up
inside all my open pores
flawless peddler of nutrient
endlessly patient
waiting to be fed
Talking with Incels
Talking with Incels
on a cyclone ravaged beach at 2am
it’s definitely you not me
it’s definitely the way it’s always been
it’s definitely just the planet correcting itself
again
just gravity
on my face
they still think is ok
their boy skin talking
boy-splaining me
I forgot the memo
about women not existing
just like the mother
he doesn’t love
my hair
just like hers
he says
just like
a cliff on a beach
when there is no beach left
And we are still sitting here
on top of the ancient Egyptians
something something
and none of this is their fault
toes curling in the cliff face
and I know they’re right
in a way
nothing can be changed
so we stop anger managing
start seeing
at 2am with incels
that the earth is indeed flat
that it’s flat to the cliffs
that it’s flat in the Balinese father I can see in him
that he doesn’t want to admit
young boys with hurt hearts
incels smiling
at me
at the ripped shadow
of their mothers
and far be it from me to say
they’re into the wrong deities
we are all on the cliff
and the plants and the sea have always been changing
have always done this
they say
it is what it is
I try to tell them about changing tides
currents
damaged seas
is this something you got from Finding Nemo?
they ask me
smirking
and I am back on the cliff
finding Nemo in the open unscarred faces of incels
their beautiful skin
they think will never be damaged
by the hardness of their eyes
but already is
No wonder we pay for the sand to come back
from where the sea has taken it
the sea doesn’t want us
doesn’t want the sound of us talking on the cliff
calling for restitution or reminder
on the rim of the flat flat earth
and still not seeing
anything beyond it
© Sally Breen
Associate Professor in Creative Writing at Griffith University and Executive Director of Asia Pacific Writers and Translators (APWT) Sally Breen is the author of grunge memoir The Casuals and the neo-noir novel Atomic City. Her short form work has been published widely www.sallybreen.com.au