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Waiuta on the Coast

Waiuta on the coast had bottles of golden

nuggets and a mother with a missing leg. Ink jars

spilled in school while leather lay rigid against the wall.

She took her shoes off in the woods and went bare.

Stole bottles from the shop and sold them back

for a shilling. She set the bed on fire with a lamp,

drunk on apple cider. An aeroplane landed in the field

but she wouldn’t go up in that rust bucket.

So she flew away on two feet

to the steeple city and the TAB.

She took a name that wasn’t hers to take

and loved a man until heart break,

and arm break.

Her son rode him like a horse, whipping an invisible crop.

She strode to the shops, made bread and butter pudding,

dyed her hair black and became a widow.

She walked and kept company with daytime TV.

Bought a drum in Fiji and opals in Australia.

She went to senior’s lunch at the casino,

wrapping half in a napkin for dinner

and she told her grandchildren

stories

about Waiuta on the coast.

Eternity Ring

Rings are round

and endless.

Encircling,

strangling,

choking,

with solid gold

or silver

or titanium

(which sounds like Titanic).

Ballet Shoes

The girl brought home a book

called ‘Ballet Shoes’ with

a faded cover

and heavy font.

But the picture on the front

made her mother smile

a little

as she turned the book over in her

hands and fanned

the pages like a

poker player.

They sat together and opened

to the beginning.

The words were clumsy,

long and heavy

and unfamiliar.

They read on

but the childs eyes were

drawn to the dog chewing

the table leg

and the mother wondered

what should go in tomorrow’s

lunch boxes, but she read on.

Uncle Gum had found fossils

and an orphaned baby.

He travelled to Nepal while

Nana kept the house on Cromwell Road.

The page ended at a picture.

The mother suggested reading some more

tomorrow, and the child melted off

the cushions

and slid under the table.

The woman closed the cover

and looked again at the image

of laces and legwarmers.

She could nearly hear her

mother’s voice

over the dishwasher.

Carnie

Put your hand up her arse and

Make her lips move.

Say the words in a high pitched voice,

So no one will guess

She isn’t real.

Practice in front of the mirror

So there is no movement

In your face.

Nothing to show the effort

It takes to make the performance

Flawless.

When the audience is gone, slide

Your fingers out of the slack fabric

And put her in a box

Lined with satin.

Spring

And the hibiscus flowers

hang

hot and heady,

and the air is thick,

viscous.

And my skin

slicks

in the sun,

and the roundness of the bees

touches the daisies,

nearly,

nearly.

And the air holds its

breath

and the clouds

ev a por ate

and the blueness

of the sky

bleaches the word,

and the brightness hurts my eyes.

Biography Katrina Larsen

I am a mother, a teacher and a writer. I have always written and find that often words make much more sense on paper than in my head. I discovered poetry through Stevie Smith in my teens and continue to be inspired by what the poets know.