daughter skin

to enter:  precision  of inhale and
exhale,  stress  and  relief,  of the
form which enables her to speak,
for   without  it  she   might  utter
something       incomprehensible,
even   worse,   truthful,   but   she
finds  herself leaning  too heavily
on  each  stress,  like  a  child  on
new     skates,     about     to    fall
head-first,  she hides behind the
structure      of      surprise,     the
ekphrasis  of an empty page, she
sees bricks  bursting  behind the
page,      making      a      beautiful
dissonance,  the bricks crater on
the concrete  her father installed
and the grass her mother laid on,
their  hopes  written  into  womb
walls, creation stories, something
like    all     love    holding    hands
around an infinite tree,  she kicks
a   brick  and  wonders  if  kicked
enough might it become smooth,
flesh  breathing   itself   into   the
blunt    earth,    into   aroha,    the
intricate  belief  of  creating,  and
like this she hands down her own
stories, she becomes her legacy.

---

ada duffy is a writer and performer of Kāi Tahu, Irish, and Indo-Fijian descent. their work is sustained by conversations with and within Te Waipounamu. they are working on their first poetry collection about Kāi Tahutaka and takatāpuitaka.