danica soich
THE LEAP
it was the shortcoming leap
across the creek which unzipped
down my shin a nine-inch slit
to which the brothers said
stay, stay as i bled.
for eels’ sake they begged
so i stood
and polluted cow-shit
dilution with warm
blood.
the black bodies boiled
and coiled in knots.
did you know they have
teeth?
the cut was greenly
infected for months
but we had smoked eel for lunch
and everyone was happy.
MERMAID
Witnesses said she was sighted wading out
towards the breakers with arms raised to sky.
The search party searched but she was probably
taken as surely as the moon fell and the next
morning swelled with no sight of her still.
My friends and I waved at the rescue helicopter.
Then we wandered wearing togs through the salt
pines and dunes on a hunt for her shoes.
By noon we decided that those had probably
been taken too.
Danica Soich is studying law and the art of young adulthood in Wellington, but her Northland blood flows thick. She hates memes but loves driving fast in her red Honda Civic.