my 16 paid jobs
1. haberdashery counter
at Woolworths
the grubbiness of my black miniskirt
and white polo
then from elastic and interfacing
transferred on Christmas Eve
to the scrum at confectionery
the notes and coins with coconut ice
tumble from my butterfingers
2. in the white starch change room
begging for safety pins
so i can close my overall
already beneath my belt
one fastening missed
Nurse! Nurse!
3. writing radio ads
for Mana Transport
but when we shifted in
it was our friends
who carried the piano
up the 227 steps to here
where the clay bank
is so nearly in my room
4. the radio dramas
i’ve collated at my desk
as the scripts pile up
the actors retrieve them for broadcast
so i can’t ever open the window
soon enough
to hurl the pages to windrift
5. aged care
the families aren’t there
but we are
6. in the pub
rush
i have no wish
my pints foam
on their lips
7. the social work clients are unmoved
but my supervisor says she enjoys
the write ups and downs of my home visits
8. these dishes don’t wash themselves
but the diners complain
the ashtrays’ wetness
extinguishes their cigarettes
nightly after i leave
the staff dinners proceed
9. at the exchange
the line remains open
for an hour or so
as we sequentially listen in
to the adulterers’ tearful sighing
10. in the criminal section of the district
court
the permanent staff despise me
for doing in 3 weeks
the filing they had assumed would take 3 months
which means i have to join in the morning scramble
to locate misplaced cases
and mull whether to reject a clandestine appeal
to steal that tour protester’s records
while registering the circumspection
of the two whose lips collided
or what was that?—an accident
at the last Christmas party
11. ring ring
‘Kia ora, Television New Zealand’
‘Kei te pēhea koe?’
in your language Mister as just heard
i have but one word: ‘putting you through now’
12. writing in residence for a year has caused
my joint to swell up and become immovable
the physio notes with some surprise
that elbow bent
i can still hang clothes on the line
and wash up
13. scan the addresses of the permanent staff
no-one lives where i come from
will begging and pleading extend my contract?
a lance carrier anything a chorus wench: untutored
14. thank you Creative New Zealand
for answering my applications several times
with cash to fund my poem writing
albeit in denial of the historical precedent
for everything i ever publish to vanish
15. how can i walk into that classroom?
when i haven’t a clue what
we’re meant to be teaching them
and can’t remember their names
the plan?—grind away
at the weekend marking and hope that
in the thicket of red pen
they lose track of me
16. in my hotel room
there is a safe
in which accumulate
the HK dollars of my daily stipend
for the food to write this collection
who has paid me? HKBU xie xie ni
coda: i was all along waiting
for my own office
and had one once
but with the door closed
it felt like a prison
now my office is
all the reaches of sky and earth
Janet Charman’s tenth collection of poems, the intimacy bus, is forthcoming from Otago University Press in March 2025.