the night was blond. she pours herself wine and two whiskeys, ‘for you boys,’ and i tumble those three words around my mouth with an ice cube and fresh lime juice. i tell them my secrets and cut them in half. he keeps his wedding ring on when he fingers me. the metal warms up…
i’m going to my brother-in-law’s again i mean i know la traviata backwards if he’s gonna tell me ‘not to text boys’ then i’d better expect the same from him she dies of consumption right most of those people do it was all right the first time *god* i am ready to go out and drink! …
Selectively mute ode I’ve tried so often to evoke speech that today,above my head, it closes like great wings. Distributed in each eye is a gunlock— violence so golden you’d yearn to touch it, by which the charge isignited, by which my boiling lips hold together a hollow & breathless cavity. The horizon edges curl wide. Babysitting, child’s…
You were supposed to die quietly,politely walk off into the bush and vanish beneath the tōtara and tutu,never making anyone uncomfortable, so they will be mad at you for this: the darkly glittering broken glass,smoke weightless as prayer, distant sirens keening as if someone who matteredhad died, but they’re just scared, since you’d prefer to…
the headline ran cloud swallowed moon whole written in cobalt blue letters on scarlet tissue paper but i know it to be truebecause i watched from my plastic grey chair on the back porch as the moon entered through itsmouth penetrating deep to the belly of the cloud light played in shadows not cheap garish beams bright glaring…
In Balclutha the river moils,alive with three rivers’ soils,before a taniwha traps all in her coils.The clean fleece of touristsis knitted into many baby blankets.Manes of waves move beyond the toetoe.Wind bluster punishes the shining tussock.A roll of thunder claps atthe unfolding scarf of a waterfall,and echoes tremble in tūīs’ call,in twang of fence-wire, in…
Three days to go. We complete nothing. Our bodies hung-dumb dry, and tired. The word dog becomes apparent only in its absence. You say I’m spelling it backwards. Say I fumbled my braids. I say you’ve never known of ash-tipped fingers on the root of your body. I say you’ve never seen a dog the…
Susannah and the Elders You are Susannah and you cannot escape the Elders. You are beautiful and you are delicate, therefore—But it is more than that. Your face And your step is a titillation, An ongoing open invitation That bites at your naked heels. They smell your weakness, rendered Sensual, as you rot beneath your neck. Your mouth is a dead…
I came second place in the international chess competition. Lost because of something to dowith a rook. The international German competition, too—they told me my vowels were too dark. That was the same for the portrait competition. Even the judges of the brass band competition said that my tuba had the wrong kind of shine.…
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…