Katherine Knight-Maclean
Love Letter to Auckland
The thing is
I’m trying to get better at apologising
but I’m scared it might make me subconsciously prone
to hurting people, as in
it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission
So I’m compelled to write this poem
while my car idles at the lights
about Auckland
and the evening
the gold green bayou
I roll the windows down and tepid air pours in
thick like molasses
sweet
scents of jasmine
frangipane
baking asphalt
conversations crawl
slow clouds swirling
The brake lights ahead tangle with humidity
strobing open and closed signs on the street cast
artificial astigmatism on the
petrol station glow
Heavy palm leaves hang
like flags at half mast
batting damply against one another
Here, I can grow basil!
but the sun burns holes in our mint leaves
so I drag the planters inside
where we shelter together like
the last survivors of an apocalyptic solar flare
People are selling fresh hangi down a road whose name I can’t remember now
Bare feet tapping hot tarmac
Hips slung out in heavy boredom
I walk back to Grandpa’s house
and there are pūkeko in the swamp
with babies
Tāmaki Makaurau
Pacific
Tinseltown
all tied up with ribbons of road
You make me notice things
against the pale sky
an avocado tree
a jacaranda
The evening light is soft and
doesn’t change for hours
then friends go in different directions
making their own way home
What I mean to say
is that I felt very happy on the 27H
rolling home to Mt Eden
and watching
the sunset’s thick strip of tangerine peel
unfurling
behind black mountains
in the west
Katherine Knight-Maclean is from Te Whanganui-a-Tara and currently lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, where she enjoys visiting the cows at Cornwall Park.