tessa keenan
a room recording
A room a room a fan heater socketed to the wall placed a rulers’ length away from any wooden surface a room for dusted carpet and a camera socketed to a computer and footprints a room where love was made and wraps were made the night before a room to get out of bed if the house was still standing in the morning it would throw its chin to the maunga with a room full of pride a room fitted sheets folded wonky socketed to the cupboard a room a room a bunker to play world war one and fight over the phone a room coming back to us in ways we cannot explain except that we are compelled to a room to listen to the smashing pumpkins in a room a room alone with a video camera on talking to a room full of strange novels strange lego strange history a room and an active volcano a room that becomes simultaneously a room and not a room when it is bragged about live on the internet an old vacuum a room unrecognisable from a room it used to be a room a room a take-your-clothes-off-when-it-is-too-warm instruction but stick uncomfortably with sunblock and residue of a room full of skin locked inside itself a room where we cannot remember the memories we made a room a room a self-portrait.
taranaki
Trenches look like
the ground’s small intestine
cut in half.
Arising and digesting.
I thought of my ancestors’ bodies.
It was hard to get up.
The wind slurped the curtains
out of the glass.
I crouched towards my stomach.
And it rained for ages.
Leaves turned to mush in the gutter.
I felt my intolerance
to yesterday’s two-dollar
Mitre 10 sausage.
A family member
lying horizontal
in the grass outside
said:
‘In a trench
you’re half buried.’
Tessa Keenan (Te Ātiawa) is 20 and often thriving. She is from Taranaki, raised with prickles in her feet, and now lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is studying Law and English Literature at Victoria University and has dabbled in poetry through the IIML.