Crows

Ali Nicolette

Sometimes you made me feel like the crows
Tipping wing over tip in the wild Santa Ana winds
Dancing together
Black and dark and shining in the weak November sun
And sometimes you made me feel like the crows
Picking over scraps spilled on the asphalt
Ravenous and insatiable
With ragged feathers stretched over hollow bones
I would have plucked an eye for you
Swallowed an eternity
And risked bursting at frayed seams
To lay the moon at your feet
Instead I am left with the crows
And the negative space
Of tired wings
Swallowing the light
And racing a memory

1

Birthright

Mollie Coles Tonn

Consider the holy work of buzzards,
knowing how to turn things that are
turning; entrails like ripe fruit,
peach energy slipping into a talon. I want
to know how to be food, to feed
myself, to become everything
and not lose my cool. How to let
absence stuff my holes and spangle.
Once I was terrified of being eaten
by worms, beetles biting my eyeball
chub, cockroaches up my crotch–
but now, the swell of insect
desire, nips at me. Deep into winter
I can hear crickets through a screen
door in August, the rasp of cicadas
through ages, taps of evening moths
at the window. When I’m home, a meal,
returned, I’ll burn into the summer air
like a vibration children tuck deep
into their birthright.

*The first line is quoted from the article “Imagining Burial” By Lia Purpura, Emergence Magazine Volume 1

2

Lukewarm

Gabriella Hirmani

Itching from the space within,
incessant gyration won’t begin
or end, only is.

like vague heat to a bud,
all the time, yet not a twelfth put
to wise use.

malnourished by the incompetence
of my own barren hand.

(pen to paper, eyes to the sky)

I can’t see through the glass, my eye
pressed flush but it withstands
the pressure of my will (and my skull.)

so close is satisfaction yet
unreachable from Her pedestal.

i ache to create,
but the insatiable backs of my eyelids
wont let me come awake.

never enough to satiate my hunger.
to display my bare bones.
to be consumed as i do

3

Body Talk

Paris Jessie

And suddenly my cuticles began to mumble
each nail a rosebud yet,
dripping yellow from the curved edges,
as if, the sun planted itself
within me
some locomotion
melting away for the moon
branches fill spaces in my back
you may now unburden
a few stars have cartwheeled together
now, they are feathered blisters
making pillow out of my solitude

5

Milk Drunk

Clare Havell-Shufflebotham

lips gently parted in fluorescent ward lights,
this is a holy scene and a holy scene has always
required the body

this baby freshly dry from the womb
takes the nipple as if she has never before felt hunger
which she hasn’t

as if this wet sweetness is it, a direct line in to the universe and the eyes rolling back

I, sweating, high on tramadol eat hospital jam toast
at midnight with hot tea - is there anything more delicious? no

chew, wonder when I can pee by myself
when my tits will lose their fake-like splendour

swallow, the scar might devour me if I look

yes the baby is milk drunk but I am milk drunk
the oxytocin only just starting its opening hand, oh
sure I’ll take another hit and any brutal thing just to let her drink

the edges of my body / fumble
sleep with the light on / eat in the dark

(I am) the Milky Way (I am) milk

6

Richard Ringer

Eleanor Cantor

You said: “Let’s get together for
dinner and I don’t mean the
New York ‘let’s get together’
I mean really ‘let’s get together’
Give me your number
I want to cook for you guys
I’m from Ohio, me and her are”.
She said: “yes, we mean it, come to dinner.”

You grilled for us outside your
Brooklyn brownstone as if it was a front
lawn. The fire kept going out
no matter how much fuel you poured
and in the end, everything, everything tasted
of gasoline. The meat, the corn, the veg.
We got high on
gasoline, we burped gasoline
We licked our plates clean of gasoline

We talked of our show
We talked of your show
Of our upbringing: Catholic, Atheist, Jew, JW
(all parents make mistakes)
of puppies and of horror films;
Does Richard Ringer like “The Ring”?

We kept in a touch, for a
while.
I saw
you have a child now. Not with her.
We have two.
You’re still in skinny jeans
screaming your head off
As it happens - so are we
Let’s get together again

and burn stuff.

7

A Labour of Love

Bailey Schaan

I watch magpie beak
break fresh thawed soil.
It is a tender knocking wake up call,
mom tapping at your door saying
“honey, you will miss the bus.”

It is the gentle plucking,
pulling up hope like worms
through soft tufts of prairie grass.
It is the back breaking labour of
patience perfected by months of
stillness and scarcity

8

I was

Chrys Anthemum

I was stuffy afternoons in the school Chapel
Tied neatly into a full skirt
With dreams of 2 and a half kids
And a rideable washing machine
An apple for lunch before choir practice
And the same peanut butter sandwich
Returned to the fridge each night

I was a Sunday morning farmer’s market
All 6am mist
Expensive croissants
And shining red capsicum
Sold by a plump old lady
With dirt under her nails

I was midnight at McDonald’s
Swept up in the riptide of bottle caps
Wholly knits wreaking of marijuana
Syrup and morphine glueing ovaries to bedsheets
Sherbert-laced hooks too deep to shake the addiction

I was a rare mid-week matinee
a disoriented sugar cube
dissolving in chamomile tea
as Chopin whistles
Through the cracks
In the rim of a mug

I am a lazy weekend at home
Still too many vices
But just enough walls
A weighted umbrella stand
And a barbecue
With roasted capsicum
Lovingly cordoned off
From this year’s #1 sausage in New Zealand

9

At 6pm the Table Overflows

Georgia Hendricks

We gather at the clink of a knife against glass
like a bell calling flocks to worship.
A ritual begins
of hands crossing over hands,
passing little delights from mouth
to mouth.
I do not follow ritual.
I do not pass what is mine.
I plunge my hands into the offerings before me.
I make a happy mess of sticky sweet persimmon and watermelon rind,
and I suck the juice from my fingertips.
One by one.
A lick and a pop.
The sounds around me grow.
Voices over voices.
Bodies lean into one another,
making nice over luscious reds and crisp whites.
No one makes nice with me
and so I find comfort elsewhere.
I dissect briney olives and suck on the seed until the flesh no longer sticks.
I chew on funky cheeses with blue filled pockets and white powder rinds.
I pierce soft sponge-like cakes with hot gooey centres.
I let the chocolate run.
I coat my hands in it,
and wipe it on my white lace dress.
There is silence at the table.
They rest their glasses and they stare.
Finally.

I no longer feel hunger.
But will I ever be full?

10

Tis the season

Emma Burnett

At no other time is it appropriate to punch a goose,
is what I think as I
ram
my fist
up its
shrivelled ass flap
in preparation for a celebration
of the dead season,
surrounded by people who
haven’t
done
the work
but sure are keen
to eat the goose I spent hours slapping around
refilling its empty carcass
and cursing whoever came up with this
stupid,
stupid,
stupid
holiday.

11

Garden Prayer

Holly Humphreys

Soil underfoot and underfinger:
I bury the sweet rot beneath
the bushes. Divest branches
of their empty grasps.
All the tending hours
fed to worms.

Late July heat turns
final blooms brown.
The drowned tomatoes
hang their yellow heads.

Tell me if sharp edges
mean justice or salvation. Tell me
if it’s better to be sorry. Better
to kneel, god’s name
a muddy graze.

12

In an Aotearoa garden

Sara Litchfield

Thirst for me no more
The crisp and husk-brown lawn
Is slaked with sky fall
A boon for which
Bright tauhous come
Bold bushels of birds
Gathered for the rising banquet
Open buffet say
The grubs set deep
Feel first the vibrations
Then the pressure of moisture
In balance so
Uncurling and stretching 
For it’s been a while
They trade places – what service!
Free bar, free bar
The tūī sing to the kōwhai tree
Flitting between firm branches
Seeking nectar’s sugar refrain 
To binge, nearby
A blackbird answers the call to dine
Choice morsels plucked out of earth
Settlers seated at the same soil
No blame, no guestlist
There is plenty lilts the clematis 
From her journey along the border
Riroriro warbles thanksgiving
And horopito bows

13

Pomegranate

Jenny Fothergill

Ruby buddha of the coffee table
splayed like a head burst open,
leather- jacketed,
sharp tongued,
cleft- hearted god.

Thoughtful,
we unpick the seeds
and search for words of blessing
end up settling for laughter
and love
making well
versed
each prayer held

by touch, by heart
each holy seed known
like our own brand
of madness
to alight, all the same.

14

Husbandry

Keri Withington

Planting the orchard, we form strong opinions on shovels.
I like the trench spade, scooping into the earth like a long
finger-nail, good for getting enough depth for the roots,
straight sides. You like the round mouth, tongue-like lapping
of the earth, good for width and general use. Who knows
if there’s a meaning there? I read into things, drive the lake
road home, plant by instinct. You read the instructions, use
the fastest route home, fastidious. You dig faster than I can,
dirt in a neat pile by the hole. I coax plants from their plastic
pots, untangle root fibers, spread them into the earth. We scoop
dirt around the saplings’ roots, crumble clay clumps, tamp
the soil. Soft moss and sweet violet spreads at tree bases.
Transplants need water to establish, so we lug the green
watering can on dry days, dream of installing a new spigot
on that side of the yard. The plums bloom first, a sudden
riot of white flowers and bees drunk on nectar. In redbud winter,
we tuck in the roots and trunks with towels, wrap the tender
leaves and bunched blossoms in old sheets. Days later, cold
snap past and last frost date approaching, we untuck
the orchard, everything greener in the spring sunlight.

15

Eaten memory

Giovanni Pagliari

the thin grey stubble
and fired blue
are points of articulation
a remembering of vigour
that have long since departed
having betrayed me
with failing visions
they’ve left a graveyard of bones
that ache with abandonment
and flesh consumed by calendars
it doesn’t matter
how much reverberance
there was
how many summits failed
or tombs visited
I’m eaten by the memorability
of it all
dissolved and break into the quiescent

16