after hardship after hardshipthe yellow guava’s five equal trunks only sprout leaf clustersthe size of a hand— each bough a furred tailemerged from earth— no branches wander offno delicacy extends— all cards held close for hundreds of losable little betsand no guavas to speak of(maybe ten at the extremitiesand small) having determined(though surely not in these words)to transition from productive to ornamentallike the tin flour sifteror the…
Kua taka te pōTū tonu ana ngā rākauHe ara atarau E hora ake mai nei Te Ara MamakuE huna ai i ngā tini whetūAnō nei Te MangōroaAnō nei he ikarangi kēNgunungunu ai I ngā pakiaka huhua Rikoriko maiWhakahīnātore maiTitia maiKātahi te whakaohomauriPai nei! E ngā whetū rikiriki waiwaiāE ngā Titiwai, tēnā koutou! Paekākā i te Pō |…
three days post-opthere are five lefton Alone UK the one who dances in the forestgets lost in treeswho curses at birds the one who boils underwear in a potso bears won’t comefor the smell of blood the one who weeps for a squirrelwho takes its toothto carve a coal tattoo the one without fishwho starves laughingfrom…
It’s early November and the warmingdawn air carries the certainty ofchange. Inside, the tap finally pourswarm ready for my post-run lemonwater. For fear of waking anyone (and this fearruns deep) I choose the woodenchopping board over the formicabench-top on which to place my glass as Iundertake the ritual of slicingyellow flesh— I figure wood is…
After Marama Salsano’s ‘Bloodwork’ Every few months I fill an inkwell with my blood and watch other people start writing with it.They dip the pointed heads of their pens into the jar and draw up just enoughto write a quarterly entry in their notes about me.I assume they record how my blood works. One lifts the bottle…
I grew up a foreigner in my own country. I was born in Australia to Greek immigrants, but my parents were born in Egypt, not Greece. So I grew up a Greek-Egyptian boy in Australia, a cultural mix that was a target for racism. There wasn’t much room to fit in. In the 1970s, Bondi…
On the beach my belly rippled, thick with the baby… I watched a child’s head go under, and not resurface. Where was the mother? Gone. Unthinking, I ran into the waves. Gentle they were, like silk around my bairn. I struck out towards the darkened hair. Behind my closed eyes, lies the curve of the…
Somewhere two kids are leaving the kitchen. Somewhere, a mother has given instructions. Can you two do a job for me? Go and pick up the milk from the gate. It’s one of those days where the Southerly has swept the sky clean. You’re wearing denim dungarees. The label on the front says SKIN JEANS.…
I am three and I am running away. I am running away from my brother and my sister and into the water falling from the sky. They wear togs. My sisters are dark blue like the moana when there’s about to be thunder. The frills at the hips are wavy shades of sunshine. My brother…
I watch the road. I live in a little copse of trees and I keep a fire waiting for strangers. I am a transmutating thing—I can form into fog or a pack of rats. I like best to transform into an owl, the most vicious owl, and I tap tap tap on people’s windows and…