She can smell
Cowdung in the mist of
Solaua, where her heart
Is suspended
From a rubber tree
Telling her of German tyranny
And Chinese indentured labour.
She lusts for the earth so
Completely there,
For he, unknowingly, showed her
A naked picture of surrealist
Beauty in eerie stumps
And ancient banyans,
Flying foxes and white ginger.
I’d like a house
With windows that
Face the horizon.
Big enough to fit
Me and my five children,
Small enough to contain
Warmth and hold my
Ideas.
I’d like a garden
Where the colours
I paint will become real
And where the stories
In my pictures will come alive.
I’d also like a man,
An ugly one with
Broad shoulders and a
Big heart. Who will love me,
Me and what’s mine,
Share my thoughts and discuss
An idea,
And hopefully no piss-offs
About the past.
You flaunt your pretty
Dresses in my face,
Your perfume spoils the
Dinner I cook for my husband.
My children look on while
You bat your false lashes
And smile your
Thirty-year-old seductiveness
At the master of my house.
You drag your words
Pointedly, and turn your
Nose in the light so that
Your bottle-beauty catches.
You spread your red fingertips
On the table-mat,
And give him the long looks.
I feel like bloody Cinderella
In my tattered shorts
And torn shirt. My hair smells like
A garlic shop, and my nails
Are chipped to the core.
I look at him and the
Bastard sits forward eagerly
Langouring in all your femininity.
The dinner tastes like dog-shit.
My son said
I smell like New Zealand
This morning.
Do I?
Do Nina Ricci fumes
Remind him
Of a crisp winter morning
In Nelson?
Or the deep red roses of
Cathedral Hill, or the
White snows of Mt Arthur,
Or the apple-orchard blossoms
In spring at Moutere,
Or the old-fashioned
Pear trees in Mrs Potter’s garden,
Or the wide stretches of
Tahuna beach?
Does it bring back
Strains of the
College orchestra at
Prize-giving,
Or the yellow of Golden Downs poplars
In autumn,
Or the small daisies
And the lazy Maitai River in summer?
If you ask me
To describe her to you,
This is how I remembered her:
Every morning
She was like a freshly opened
Teuila bloom —
Full of red vibrancy and deep flame,
Fresh with an elusive dewy fragrance.
She was like an elegant touch of
Green in cool tropical afternoons,
Or the softly mysterious mists
In deep river-beds that are rarely seen.
Her laughter was the brilliance
Of sandy days with the sun beating
Down on blue and white waves,
Her love as all-consuming.
She was faithful and forgiving,
Wise, poised, charming, classy, humorous,
With style and sophistication.
But in her profound beauty,
Like a soft sunset,
Or a gentle moonlit night,
Or a quietly crying rain,
You could have touched her
Sadness.