The grind

A bobwhite quail crosses the road in front of the car, rushing to join his flock. Something is crowning, but let me not know. Amongst the ebb and flow of typing and clicking I can feel my own world expanding. I unfurl from a gargantuan core. Watch the gulls, dark smudges against an endless grey backdrop. I am rippling like a piece of plastic that has been heated and moulded, heated and moulded over again.

Fig leaves drip turgid green into the living room. Light plays upon the angled ceiling along with the echo of polite chewing & the sigh of the oven. The fire pit is rusting. It is rusting so reliably. The cow skull with three bullets punched through her forehead nestles in the grass. Weathered by the sun and mottled with algae, flowers drip through her eye sockets. Meanwhile, I watch a line of traffic up on the hill so tiny. Meanwhile, I waver between four different flavours of herbal tea. At 4.30 I leave the hospital grounds, drive four minutes to pick you up. Another day, another dollar you say and we laugh, because neither of us are getting paid for this.

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Elliot Harley McKenzie (they/them) is a queer Pākehā poet living in Tāmaki Makaurau. They like writing about queer ecology and love in its many forms. Their work appears in places like Turbine | Kapohau, Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, and bad apple.