with the inward facing surface of her left hand the daughter touches her eyelids often imagining her fingers as guardians the kauri trees surround the house twenty or so the mother drives the daughter to a clinic where there is a sunporch and a sundeck the daughter grows anxious about the…
Ōtarahaka trachyte passage Tamatea’s exploded ashes scarred hills forestry’s slash remains scattered broom blossoms radiate like melted butter kōhatu fallen resemble ancient dolmen tombs remarkable dykes rock slabs climbing skyward Ariana Tikao is a Kāi Tahu artist of the sound and word variety from Ōtautahi Christchurch. She was a 2023 Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at Canterbury University, and was awarded as a New Zealand…
a summer of toxic fumes coats your ribswith a vengeance and the new year that ismerely the other side of the old year burnsits way through your skull and you stumbleinto the coffee shop that is also a chemist that isa record store up the escalator and the a/cbreeze stretches your mind to the very…
Perfume I. The rose-song Alcaeus, the Ancient Greek, held his lyre like a creature, like a cat under his fingers. He—shade-eyed,curtailed, hair in vines—is a smear of oil paintat the Metropolitan Museum. I have only everseen him on a screen. They teach you to closea bottle of turps while using it, because the smellis so strong.…
I’m standing in the water. It’s up to my calves already. My father was always telling me: you must get your feet wet. I never understood what he meant. Was it something about getting involved? My mother always said: be careful. Don’t go near the water. It’s dangerous. I thought I knew what she meant:…
Galoshes After all you gave me, includingthe ambivalence of life itself,it was a pleasure to gift some comfort.A fresh wool coat, supple cotton pyjamas,ethereal orchids, bulging tulip bulbs,a pair of rubber garden galoshes. When the phone call finally came,I knew, instantly, you’d fallenwearing those bloody galoshes.I rang an artist aunt, sobbing,explained about the footwear.‘I’m wearing…
A minute hum in you builds to a purrclaws stem from my fingertipsI endure on your restless touch and topple Troy You mewlpretty petsoft as kitten fur Lateryour grip firmsmy body twisted oakbent and blissful When we are spentthese thin walls reveal those beyondboys brashly bantering home from a gigI imagine what they might have heardnot knowing…
I was a cricketer back whenmy anterior talofibular ligament was intactand properly connected to the surrounding tissue.An all-rounder to be exact, in the lowest-ranked team of my local club.Identities are not always built on prowess, but bats knocked in on Christmas mornings,poker games during rain delays,pizzas on the fields outside our clubroomsthe night before I…
Is light on skinvision? With the eyes closed—is this vision? The video of a moth on my laptop screenshines no real light on me.And the light on my ceiling, too,shines no real light on me. Onlydetailfronding into further detail:fact, and the responsibility of fact. Like the flower,I want light to beheat,flatness; I am againstparticulars. I will…
In college I was an unpaid internwhich had benefitslike getting a manicureso they could use my handas a model,and writing about honeymoonsfor the bridal magazine. I was a dreamer,always going on honeymoons—Queenstown, Bora Bora—with the men Inever let myself be with, Sabrina the Teenage Witchleaving her affianced at the altarto hop on Harvey’s bike,tulle and…