Them

They love lie detection tests and detention bracelets.
They inflate a soft toy globe, they puff with notable lips.
They discuss persecution complexes.
They have devastation visited upon them.
They always hark back to analogue times.
They anguish about the good, the bad, the God-bothered.
They make a welter of air kisses.
They demand a simultaneous translation.
They are drifting along a flight corridor.
They are all love charms and spooky coincidences.
They are misanthropes feasting on haunches of antelopes.
They willingly enter a steep weirdness curve.
They seek to buy our love,
and reduce philosophy to a jingle.
They make something out of nothing.
They promise there’s a future riding on it.
They want to make this thing fly.
They boost the power of botanicals.
They follow up blood trails with yarrow.
They will take a neo-classical turn if necessary.
They want to lead us through the kissing gate,
towards the big kiss-off and good-bye.

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David Eggleton lives in Ōtepoti Dunedin and was the Aotearoa New Zealand Poet Laureate between August 2019 and August 2022. His most recent poetry book, Respirator: A Poet Laureate Collection 2019–2022, was published by Otago University Press in 2023.