ake

death 

     and dying, they -

all five wahine -

   lie flat horizontal

curling and curving 

        upwards to small standing:

 backs arched

 left to rot, twisted

 contorted squatting

birds pick at their bones

  then their bones

 return home 

what would my bones look like?

  without my flesh -

     would I have cracks in me?

would they eat me, those five 

kete-headed birds?

or would they bury me? 

cigarette duet

In summer, you looked so good 

with a cigarette in your hand.

Something about the traveling and Jack White ,

and sleeping in your van. 

Something about striking up 

conversation in a bar, sharing an infrequent 

ritual with a stranger. 

Something about being drunk and wild.

Something about being young and feeling it.

Something about nothing.

... about a sense of unwritten, unrecorded, unfailing nostalgia.

Something to go well with a coffee, the sex, a beer, the pot.

Something about the view - 

breathing just wasn't enough.

Something to keep your hands busy. 

Some smell to remember you by.

Some relief from the beauty and cleansing.

Something to go with not showering for four days.

Something to waste your money on.

Something to take time out from the time out.

Something to stick to.

Something to hold.

Something to shock mother with (also a smoker).

Something that suited you,

Because it was you.

You looked so good 

with a cigarette in your hand, in summer. 

of power and vulnerability

there is very little

that is quite so nice

as your back opening into my palms

your fingers lying between my ribs

your nose pressed into my sternum

your temple's heartbeat pulsing under my forehead

your limbs spaghettied around my skin-cells

your weight causing my organs a delightful nausea

your hands tracing their way over me and into me 

your eyes narrowing slightly their whiteness -

first, of focus

and then, of pleasure