Under the Weather
It is mid-June and
you haven’t seen daylight for quite some time,
haven’t left your bed or felt a faucet’s steady drip on your back, can’t
recall the last time you smiled where it wasn’t on cue
wasn’t it April? was that
the last time the sky was blue before the thunderclap that sent you home
Two children daring each other to touch an electric fence
In winter your muscles fasten together in an icy paralysis. You walk barefoot on the railway – your feet warmed by the rumble of trains. You can feel their vibrato as they approach, shaking the dewdrops on the frost-bound earth.
You hold fast to the sleepers, enamoured by the headlights and the scream of the whistle.
aquarium dreams
tonight I pledge to have aquarium dreams
there will be octopi and axolotl and anemone and eels
they can nibble on blood worms and prawns and peas
taste the ends of my fingers and pieces of cheese
Travellers
They were eager, serious travellers, absorbed in understanding what was to be seen and discovering what was hidden… this city and its secrets, these barely established inhabitants bearing a certain anonymity appointed only to those fresh to these streets like indeterminable, new-fallen leaves dancing in the fierce self-assurance of the biting Pōneke breeze.
Soon, she thinks, soon they will know me.
Shortages of Blood
It’s not like he had planned to visit, but after five long, wet hours, the downpour outside is showing no signs of slowing down. The museum is a proper building at least, not the wood and cardboard that every other house in this city seems to be built of. The floors are reasonably wide and airy, the lighting mildly pleasant. He saunters into one room after the other, looks at exhibits and pretends to read the signs next to them. Some of them don’t have signs at all.