A baby rabbit crawled into a Ziploc bag—sandwich size on my bedroom floor—its small stone-coloured body wedged sideways—doll eyes staring—lying so still I thought it must have orchestrated its own demise—which is what the coroner wrote on my brother’s death certificate after his motorbike lost control on the 20 km/h left-hand bend into Pauanui—he was…
at the end of his time on earthWu Daozi master of illusion painted a door in one of his pictureswhich he then openedand disappeared through in some writers’ accountssuch a flourish of legerdemainwould be emblematic of suicidebut Wu’s move surely placed himamong the immortals motive + means + opportunitythe ingredients of great crime or great artWu’s…
Fountain You seated me at the fountain to watch you throw small stones, like useless buttons, into the water. You were older than me, and kept forgetting my name and then remembering it, suddenly, like a taste. It was then you became the object of all my desire. Long after you left I coveted the shape of your body: your round waist, your dark,…
In the tiny bronze star embossed onto a teaspoon.In the panning that flickers quick between earbuds. In the moment of cold meeting hot breath.In the musk of the skin, post-hunt, I mean, in the ripening. I mean, when knees bend, when brow bone calls for dirt,I mean, in the urge to get lower still—I mean,…
Without incident I gave what I got. All my yesterdays folding into one discrete sentence.I told the wind what to do with me. I told the fields how to hold me down.I told the dandelion to hurt me in steps, to talk me through how to be afraid.The barnhouse said just a short sting and…
first quarter:there’s a poorly pruned fig tree growing off the side of our driveway.last year the tree-trimmers came knocking one too many times, and we trusted themtoo much. I worriedthe fig wouldn’t make itbut it retaliated, soaring to surpass original heightall in water shoots, as though having decidedwe don’t deserve the fruit anymorethey’re for the…
the teacher says he hasn’tdone any written work in three weeks the mother says the educational psychologist saysthat’s because the child is gifted the teacher says there are other words for itthe principal says the mother has given her child too much waterGod knows when she grows up she will burst through the swollen chestof…
in poor childhoods big macs grow on trees as high as heaven to humans who sin. whole neighbourhoods are full of fatness, not heart disease fatness but brand new baby fatness. it’s because we asked grandad what heaven was like and he said it was different for every human. that very afternoon the age of…
Taken aback by her daring disregardof social conventions about stopping distance,the cyclist laughed, refrainedfrom giving a lecture on mannersto the young woman with puffed sleeveswho stepped onto the crossingreading a book the old-fashioned waylike she’d stepped from a Jane Austen noveldetermined to make it clearshe was more interested in readingthan life itself, and nothing and…
I went to the shop to ask whether they sold Aunt Betty’s Yorkshire puddingsthat was shame enough having to tell a place with strip lighting and uniformsabout how the fat needs to be beef dripping not oil and needs to be so hotit’s smoking in the tin the oven so hot it hot glues your…