In one mise en scène
chunks of your tinana go
AWOL
teens feed emojis
into your live stream you
know they’re not judging
sensitive that you’re short on
organs losing face dis
membering rapidly
men act nonchalant about
your loss oh there goes
an arm
e mara
Later
you’re ground zero from
the waist down
lovers lug you or
you slither over rubble
they grab your hair and have
sex with nothing
as if it’s there
Stranded on the paepae
there’s a pig-coloured whale
with human expressions
you’ve met before
it mihis to you while
decomposing
if you’d had eyes you might’ve
cried
the grief all clogged no
holes to leak out
e kara
By nightfall you’re on
your tuaraa wheezing and
cough into foetal
thank the stars you still
have a
spine
with blades either side
though it’s stiff like any
carcass left out
in the cold
Tall friends arrive
unannounced
and grimace at the future
you offer them a straw
e ara
the repeat
world before the blackout
fuck, where is the edge now?
inhale the dark
edge of this darkness?
the black rainbow dips
panting in the arc
a black sun in my mind
The gasp. The repeat.
death throes
Tru Paraha is a professional choreographer, artist, and writer. Her commissioned productions and collaborative artworks have been featured at national symposia, galleries, and festivals. Her poems are published in numerous books, journals, and digital platforms, including the collection ‘in my darkling universe’ featured in AUP New Poets 8. Tru is a lecturer in the English department at the University of Auckland with interests in contemporary poetry, performance writing, and transcultural literature.