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ISSN: 1941-4137 |
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Volume Five Issue One |
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Drinking in the New Zealand Rain I ran away here, Ben You followed with guts Crammed with peanuts and movies. We walked Papamoa beach, the waves To you Slid like frayed cards, shuffled By the paws of hungry street cats. You couldn't understand, couldn't accept I'd tossed my Cinderella heels Into that sea, burnt a homeless Man's blanket on that hill, Drunk as a crab. You liked the cows in the paddocks, though — Their cannon eyes wailing out lost dreams. We were just American backpackers Then. Kids. Gave their naïve moon Facial stubble, or so the locals Said. Our voices Together, fell like a beehive of a weather bomb In that silent space on or around Furry, Batman dusk. You proposed on a farmer's field More dead stone than grass. Afterwards, we got drunk in the summer rain Washed away, soil sponge Swore we'd never leave. *** But you did, twenty years later Ben. Dragged the sea out Of our fancy bathroom shells, left Papamoa. Left me to walk Lucy up between Her sand aisle, between chairs As the kiwis hunched in the dunes Shook their trunk heads at me: "that poor Yank …" Visiting us today from Chicago This time, I know the chilli in your eyes Is simply jetlag, not sands of world Weariness, the young me longed To bottle, keep safe. Lucy and her new husband hold hands. A loosely wired family Strolls the beach. |
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