Te Kore The girl walks into the forest for the first time in ages. She remembers a long-ago time, when she went by a different name. Now—like then—she comes here seeking refuge. The forest rushes up to greet her. Wind tinkling, leaves turning themselves inside out. Steel your back, her tūpuna whisper. She notices everything.…
I am lucky. I do the splits on Noxul Street. Hanumanasana or samakonasana—the watchers don’t care. The watchers do care how much I hurt, or which level I attain each week: elementary, flexible, or elastic. I’m currently sitting at flexible, although occasionally I break into the rubber-band category. I’m indefatigable even though the pain is…
Is this a real video, Mum writes, or is this AI? I’m still half asleep. The light in my room is the honey-gold of early mornings and my curtains shiver with barely-felt air. Squinting, I click on the link. The two remaining Beatles walk along Abbey Road. I recognise it because I was there with…
‘The horizon tastes like summer fruits,’ says Tupuārangi, still glowing from the sun. I look back at that golden cloak hemming the sea, and say nothing. The wind catches us, and one by one we rise like fish pulled from the water. We breach into the night and wait. ‘Hiwa,’ comes the sweet voice of…
While I was a student, I lived in a pale grey cottage in Thorndon on a lane so narrow that if I was reading in my chair by the window, passersby could look over my shoulder and see that I had To the Lighthouse on my knee and that I was circling colours with my…
the fijian boy says he’ll bring kokoda, and marama’s tama, paua fritters. her daughter says she’ll bring panikeke, and her toko will bring ‘otai. the palagi boy says he’ll bring himself and everyone laughs her daughter says, but isn’t it meant to be a night repping all our cultures? chat, palagi people come from somewhere…
My feet dangle in the old waterhole. It looks the same. The dark patch in the corner, the black hole, we would call it. Mouth agape at anyone brave enough to swim its murky depths. The kahikatea still looms over me. Frayed remains of a rope hanging from a branch. We would swing from it,…
When they moved from America, New Zealand didn’t exist. None of the kids had heard of it (being five years pre-Fellowship of the Ring) and Emmy had to lug the globe from the activity corner to the front of her first grade class, spin it all the way round, and jab her finger so far…
It was bitterly cold this morning. I made sure we were rugged up for our morning walk. You had on your new purple beanie and scarf that Jess gave you for your birthday. We saw Emmie and the twins at the coffee cart. After a quick chat about the weather, they headed to the playground,…
Dad would stand the three of us on the bench in a row and dry us carefully, including between our toes. You and Curtis are naked in all my memories of the men’s changing room. The brown birthmark on your inner thigh, the scar on Curtis’s buttock from when he fell off the garage roof,…