MARTHA SCHENK
Party people
warm malt on my tongue base like bile
I won’t be stupid and let you taste it
tonight, I will be brave and undefeated
I will walk home twenty-nine minutes
and when the cabbie pulls over and leers
I will lift my lead head and shake the tresses
if ever there was a hack with so much stoic
it would be me and my withering mane
plastic cup cracking at the rim
I don’t think that’s beer I think it’s brine
my brain is swimming in a jar somewhere
there’s three of me here
and you haven’t even asked me a question
I can’t strain to remember your name
your kitchen is my serene sanctum
your presence my unrequited plague
I can’t believe I lost my silverware
crawling after the orb there
it won’t matter tomorrow
what happened out there in the yard
I’m sorry about your window shards
but when the sun rises tomorrow
I’m going to curl up into a marble
and roll around your head
for sasha
We’re combing the bay at Breaker
and the iridescent palm-sized marvel
snatches at my peripheral
oil slick colours return the balmed sky
They say shrimp can see a thousand more
well, this little mollusc is enough for me
Unreal! What a pāua
can I take it? I’m asking her, but the ocean too
She’s laughing of course you can
I display its calcified pride
window-side
A few days later
someone’s rollie has defaced the pearly inner
Sasha!
I wipe the ash out carefully
pointedly
That’s my pāua
Martha Schenk is German-born, Australian-grown, and Aotearoa-living. She currently studies English Literature at Te Herenga Waka, where she spends a lot of time looking out the window at the harbour below.