Nightcaps

The town over sells fresh honey and chutney.
We must have lost the arms race, as our farmers’ market is
now filled only with familiar faces.

The prices are fixed, like vice grips onto framed timber.
Bartering is punishable by death.

I have died a thousand times and, like Christ,
walked past the rolled stones,
nails in my soft hands.

Mr Montaigne strings up his slaughtered chickens,
heckles at Tom Sullivan’s daughter.
She ignores him, of course. He
knows only one way to skin a bird.

There is a casket of Gala apples on the nearest counter,
Red-rimmed and mottled orange. 
They fall into my rucksack, sounding like stones
thrown into shallow water.

I pass the apple-seller a tenner. He doesn’t bother
to give me change. 

It will be winter again soon, and those apple trees 
will wilt and wither. The town over can keep its
sweet honey and spiced chutney. We’ll see
who’s here come December.

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Oliver Floodsmith-Ryan is a writer and IIML graduate from Upper Hutt, currently residing in Auckland.