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Poetry: June 2019

New Zealand Fiction

I issued a complaint to the Ministry of Lost Causes
They responded: tena koe %clientName we’re sorry to hear
you were upset, but our staff keep flying away; 
the earth is too heavy, their shoes are too light. 
Nga mihi,
%staffMember 

All these stories by straight old white men;
we need new voices, new perspectives—
like me, a young gay white man.
The future is here: it is %currentGeneration.


I’m not sure I can tell you

It’s a sorta fucky thing
galloping, downwards 
indigent, collapsing 
welt-foot, bareback
fragments of bone 
we lost at night. 
Does that make sense? 

No but okay, there’s heat right? 
There’s this instra-us wiring
that bends when we walk; 
that skeletons the silence.
Flashbulbs and nitrate-stink 
and little pieces of the night
and all that, you know? 

Okay yeah sorta but more like— 
the smell of lightning/the taste of a nosebleed
illuminating our frames as we stumble forward. 
It’s not a thing I have words for. 
It’s just a thing, you know?

Published inPoetry

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