I auditioned for a band called the High Rising Terminals but
I wasn’t born in this country.
Are you mono, bi or multi-culti?
English will do for most
people, but the tūī considers it a crude
approximation of his native foliage.
I sleep on my right-hand side here — one cheek
rests on water
one sea-ear listens for round vowels rising from
the mussel’s razor lips.
There is much I could have told you but I no longer
have it by heart.
Do you too hear the rain that raineth every day
as you lie on your bed of nails?
Have you armed the clattering cabbage-tree?
Can you translate for me
this basket of steam, that slow pulsing
underneath the ground?