Rachel Lockwood
TŪtaekurĪ
The long, fast road lined with trees already starting to turn.
Ritually, I comment on the water level in the river.
Hard to believe now that it flooded here, with leaves just this colour,
The stones barely silvered.
I cried the whole time I drove away
With my high school Lana CD.
Me, and the wind drying my face sticky,
Slapping on sunscreen in a moving vehicle
Because the sky is out to get me these days.
I imagine the people I would bring here
And how I would explain it.
The hills that are islands only the dead remember,
The old seawall, the places where there were dolphins,
The street corner with Heaven’s Bakery,
The house where my cousin’s placenta is buried.
When my grandad died I showed him to another cousin
Like a magic trick, standing on a chair to pull back the sheet.
Big reveal, baby!
I left him behind, too.
Rachel Lockwood is a Hawke’s Bay gal and a secondary school teacher. She has been previously published in Starling, Mayhem, and the 2023 Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook, among others.