Away from voices
on shore, we row out
into the limitless fog.

Our bodies rock
together: shoulders,
thighs, touching

—which is all
we want to feel,
flooding our heads.

The tumid night
blankets the water
like an oil slick.

Moana! It’s me…
I’ve run from Hine-nui-te-pō
to hear the waves break in the twilight morning
and see once more the waka pulled up high
on the beach, their tauihu standing
like warriors, proud amongst the gulls
and scuttling crabs.

I dig in the sand,
two lengths from the great pohutukawa,
until my lonely hands touch what we buried:
the waka huia I carved
with our bodies entwined on every side,
mouths open, tongues hungry.

The edges of the box
have softened over time, but the embers
we placed inside still glow, which we can use
to light again a fire in the dunes
that will burn like the one Ranginui
and Papatūānuku lit in the beginning.

I no longer reach for belief
like a Romeo or a Juliet.

I just look back now
to the ruins of each

crumbling temple, each pigeon
perch, each fallen tower,

and from those snapshots
I get my eternal relief.

I would love an apple orchard,
with goats kept at bay by a fence,
with pigs, snout-ringed, allowed
to sample the windfall fruit

only, not my perfect darlings,
hanging ripe from heavy, drooping
branches, waiting for a hand
to appreciate them, like I surely

would, if an orchard were mine―
but I’m old, and it’s too late now
to plant stake-bound saplings in land
I do not even have a lease to own.

There’ll be no evening dalliance
with the sweet fruit of Eves,
just apples enough from one tree
planted, wisely, many years ago.

Now’s the moment,
my love, the Himalayas

are visible once more
from the plains of Punjab.

Fear creates a beauty
to behold. So let us then,

while hearts are pumping,
remove everything

that’s been between us
so many years, and press

our peaks to valleys,
and as continents collide

raise-up our Everest!

I shut the door
and turn the key,
light a fire and lean
on the piano.

The black notes
come easily to me
and I finger quickly
a tune I know.

Your body appears,
radiant in light,
on the bed draped
in shadow.

You pull to you
the sheet of night:
I tremble and run
in the meadow.

For the glory of love, friends
I push away. Stretch every dollar
for time alone, to feel again
the bitterness, and then savour
longing, for as long as I must.

I live to suffer, to endlessly bask
in what was lost. The low hills
are my home, the ancient orchard
my church. I pick the best fruit.
Goats follow me, nibbling my rags.