Kauri Health Care

with the inward facing surface of her left hand the daughter touches her eyelids often imagining her fingers as guardians     the kauri trees surround the house twenty or so     the mother drives the daughter to a clinic where there is     a sunporch and a sundeck     the daughter grows anxious about the pain and the world and herself in wanting     a patch of native bush     the mother waits in the car looking out     the mother considers     circular groupings of leaves     column-like trunks     and going across the road to the garden centre to buy some new life to grow     tall and straight     but she stays in the car putting off such a move desiring     distinctive silhouettes against the skyline     the more she puts it off the more she feels she cannot     stretch up to the sky or     leave the car for what if the daughter returns while     sunlight defuses     to find no life in the car so the mother draws a picture while she waits     as it filters     the mother draws the daughter     down through the branches wearing a suit jacket     and foliage     with large undercover shoulder pads to absorb the weight and the clouds that refuse to move through     shafts of light     she draws the daughter in a landscape fractured forming     where the mountain looks on an     abstract cube shape     the daughter smiles as they fall through the foliage of the forest     the mother adds thicker pads to protect the daughter like     treatment trials     she makes the jacket double breasted with stitched     seeds from the kauri and the buttons reinforced with triple thread     in quarantine     but the daughter’s smile turns and heaviness begins to     search and re-search     to leak     of inspiration falling     the pads begin to fail in their ability to hold     dis-ease     so the mother drives the daughter home     the mother boils the jug     fills the bottle with warmth     the daughter curls     the warmth cradles     the mother     the daughter