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Michael
the arrival of an ambulance
the hospital’s heart races
Michael master of the Miramar
Peninsula slow sinks the hill
with sea-rind sea-smoke drowns
the coastline floods his own deep thoughts
+
there’s always there’s always
someone returning home the hiss of sea grasses
Michael at the window the slap of kelp
calling me inside the wicker of the swell
the chimney above the whoosh of waves
the parapet drawing a draught higher / warmer
anchored under ledges pressed into crevices
his brick-by-brick house his tide pool
he toka tū moana
as durable as a rock pounded by surf
+
we’re in a rowboat at Moa Pt
watching the sea hurl herself
over the long arm of the surf break
elbow to wrist / hand to elbow/ wrist to hand
the sea dragging after her bottles sunglasses
jandals mementoes of thrill seekers
thrill seekers! I’m three
Michael jumps in after me
through the eyes of waves
the huffy inkling of a ghost
his strong arms
+
he buys a blue budgie from an aviary
in Coutts St puts her in his saddle bag
lifts me onto the crossbar of his bike
pedals through the graffitied mouth
of the Rongotai to Miramar subway
the blurry voices of planes above our heads
the budgie holding her breath
+
I keep the wooden ruler
he bought me on my writing desk
the strip of transfers trip along the centre
like a film reel Mt Ngauruhoe Waitomo
Manapouri their colours somehow electric
+
Clive rests dad’s gold watch
on Michael’s thin bruised wrist
the tick tick tick flicks open their days
being off school with scarlet fever
tadpole hunting in the pool
of the drowned boy at Evans Bay
Patent Slip he hums Wonderful Land
hopes Michael joins in even the smallest
note means he’s still on the boat
+
a Priest hurries to Michael’s bedside
slips into a surplice kisses the purple stole
lights a candle draws a + on his forehead
lays on with hands the words of Baptism
so he’s not alone in the language of chrism oil
(oleum infirmorum) he blesses him
eyes ears nostrils lips hands
flames the waxy wounds of a blood moon
lighten the room God’s already there
around Michael’s mouth holy air
+
a gondola at Wellington’s Zoological Gardens
carried him most Sundays to a small island
swans willows pelicans this photo taken long
before the flash flood swallowed the gondola
long before the lake dried up and the island
disappeared the archival caption do you remember
this man? where the island was echoes of echoes of
the gondolier’s that’s alright Mama still stir toetoe
carex harakeke and even louder Michael on guitar
at the prow of his mahogany coffin nailing the chorus
im MJS
13.2.24
Kerrin P. Sharpe has published five collections of poetry (all with Te Herenga Waka University Press, Wellington, NZ) with the latest Hoof, published October 2023. She has also had poems published in a wide range of journals both in NZ and overseas including Oxford Poets 13 (Carcanet Press), Blackbox Manifold, Poetry (USA), berlin lit (Germany), PN Review and Stand (UK). She has appeared in Best New Zealand Poems six times, Best of Best New Zealand Poems and The Best of Sport 2005-2019. In 2021 she was awarded a Michael King Writers Centre Summer Residency.
Copyright © 2024 by Kerrin P. Sharpe, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author
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