A day of westerly gales,fallen branches, leafage, willy-williesclattering the car’s panels with grit.White wavelets to the left of the causeway.You in the passenger seat, sewing labelson two improv art quilts, the finishing touch.North of Bodalla, two trees down,closing a lane, ours the one moving;a big man in fluoro gear trotting to assess,his ute flashing yellow…
I drop in, she hugs me, offersfive kinds of tea, finds biscuits.Up close, her neck is a country mileof sundrenched hills and valleys.She is solidly fit, walksto the Four Square. He: beer-keg belly,ruined back. She shows me a poemshe wrote for him on one of their tripsto the beach. They’ve been a couplesince high school.…
The town over sells fresh honey and chutney.We must have lost the arms race, as our farmers’ market isnow 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.…
The Dogs When I think of the dogs I think of the clatter of biscuits in tin bowls,of chain on corrugated iron. Working dogs live outside and incidentally outside is what you say when you want them to leave. You saygettawayback you saywayleggoyou say come by, come by. Speak up. Once when I was four you had…
the tall grass shades under the mānuka groveriver drifts by: blushed with carplads lying, sentimental, at heart fertility pulses in the veinsmen men till they’re nota torn convoluted plot whole tumble of misfortunegrass scratching against the thighsthe river gliding, her eyes wheat-weary grass-cudding tunesandwich-up on the mud-moss bankfeet pressing, none to thank Brett Cross has…
A Stuffed Owl in a Museum Potatoes in a box at the bottom of a rack,bitter greens bunched in twine, the cold air.The shop is dim inside, packs of sliced bread in brown paper bags. No soy or rice milkat this grocery store. I buy a bag of spinach,rinse the soil in the sink, pull the…
1. haberdashery counter at Woolworthsthe grubbiness of my black miniskirt and white polothen from elastic and interfacingtransferred on Christmas Eve to the scrum at confectionerythe notes and coins with coconut icetumble from my butterfingers 2. in the white starch change roombegging for safety pinsso i can close my overallalready beneath my beltone fastening missed Nurse! Nurse! 3. writing radio…
South of the city back then if you were a bad boyConstable ‘Cruiser’ Boat who represented the large bootof the law in the district would with the approvalof the entire communitypossibly including your parentsadminister a kick up the arse which remedy when appliedat the optimum juncturewas believed to eliminate all risk of recidivism it never occurred to…
His thundering horses his river of goldhis liquid altar you dare not speak I understand those white sails in the Pacific were something he always dreamed of a thousand miles away but I managed to limp home to light my child’s lamp before he went to sleep Simon Anton Niño Diego Baena’s fourth chapbook, With Different Wars Raging, is forthcoming from…
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…