Ori is born on a Tuesday. I tell myself that people do this everyday, and the thought steadies me. Cara catches him as he slides free from my body, scooping him up to rest in my arms. He is slippery and purple. His face is pinched. He has fine, dark hair slicked to his head.…
I moved out on a Thursday. As I packed the last box in the trunk of my hatchback, the sun greeted me as if it was our last encounter. I turned back to take one last look at the house I convinced Noah to buy with me. But somehow it was me who was leaving. …
Tēnā koutou katoa, Nau mai, haere mai to our August 2025 issue of takahē! A heartfelt thank you to everyone who supports us, whether by reading the magazine, submitting work, donating, buying a back issue or merch, sharing our content, or sending feedback. And of course, to our incredible contributors who have stitched their bold…
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’sbecause we asked grandad what heaven was like and he said it was different for every human. that very afternoon the age of hash…
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…
Rise in silent kettles, soft & round. Whispering within wai, stirring steam underneath pōhutukawa sky, where the boil-up billowing the slow rhythms of watercresslaces stories of tūpuna. Now fractured bysmog and lights, urban-gentry marshmallowhands reach for sweetness—froth-churneddreams sold with roasted syrup topping coffeecup lids of ivory tower minds. Dough buoys likethem rose by…