The day you fly to Dunedin for a writer’s residency, you google a woman you knew from Otago law school. She’s just appeared in court for a man accused of taking something from a woman, which the woman said she didn’t want to give. That could have been you, you think, defending men who choose…
Freud I had a housewarming in the country for not many peopleWho did not know each other wellI made tamarillo chutney and spinach and feta frittersTony brought the wild pig which was female and not gameyAnd briefly we had a party because it was all so deliciousIn the photos I look unhappy and tightBecause I…
From Telepresences Teratophilematology My Zoom therapist is tender under her Bill Clinton mask. Her retrievertongues the plastic wrinkles like a sloppy car wash. She makes me choose who tasted better: sexy Freddy Kruger or the Jägerbombed Leatherfacethat slapped the bouncer. How many people touch you each day? Did you know lipstick was invented to simulate a healthy…
Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another edited by Jennifer Cheuk. 5ever Books (2024). RRP: $65. PB, 231pp. ISBN: 9780473713560. Reviewed by Vera Hua Dong. Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another is a lavish tapestry of sounds and shapes of languages, colours and aromas of spices, and most of all, of the lightness and heaviness of…
We brought back lacquerware plates that we had painted with almond sap and sprinkled with coloured mica as if we were masters—a drop of dust and a knowing nod, greeted by the sound of hands meeting—as if we were the most important part of the process. And the starts of chapters are marked with torn receipts, where I had asked how she would…
His emanation was at least five emanations away from the main emanation;Someone had counted; someone else had counted twice;But how many emanations had he left before he departed entirely from their field of vision,From their plane of compresence and suffering?That was hard to tell.Could be four; could be eighteen;It could that he had passed the…
1. My dog is a retired racing dog called Luca. I’m not allowed to call him a rescue, and I’m not allowed to use his image to promote anti-racing propaganda so all I’ll say is he arrived to us with a broken tail and one and a half ears and a deep terror of the…
my loves stretch for eons towards the horizonnot your californian cultborn from firestorm deathbut still taller than god and i reckon more loyalsit on the corpse in the centreand observe as your body hovers two hundred feet above slow groundsalamanders snooze and ooze in the canopyembracing fairy rings underneathroots spoon the murk and needles sip…
I In childhood I was up the pear tree so often & the soft bodies of butterflies bumped against fermenting fruit flesh& bees hummed sweetlyfull of needles& the platform smelt of rot from yearly bumper crops& I watched patients of Joy, the Jungian psychologist,trail down our shared drivewayclutching their dream journals. Joy was a Catholic & gave us apples at…
Predestination was something my motherthought was a holiday you found outabout when you got to the airport. I saw it as removing the blindfoldafter they put you in the coffin,discovering too late they’d dressed you in a shirt that didn’t match your jacket. That’s you for eternity.Taking you out of your natural habitat, deciding for you…