Hinewai

i have been admitted  

more times than he’ll ever admit  

        it wasn’t peaceful  

i tell myself he will be mummified  

next to the first cat in space, Felicette  

but these rabid geese i bring instead  

  are just electric.  

in the basin, three swans  

land on the moon

and i coil seven snakes around him  

in the name of matariki

in lieu of calling 111.

Hinewai says the only place you’re Māori is in your liver  

i coughed up underwater and chunks of peace came out  

it’s like the skies are so well groomed for falling they’re  

    singing ‘alleluia so pure, i swear i’ve seen something  

 explode in the Pacific, perhaps in this room.  

      Hinewai would fan herself dry with a whole pork. 

here is a sacrificial poem for ratbags.  

here is my brother. here are the 

   “three taken from our hospital already,” 

here are the creeps, the lionhearts and  

losers who made me, here  

is a voyage, here the Very 

 Important  

      Polynesians  

& here, 

Hinewai says this is how  

   you let your hair down - 

like a suckerpunch 

like her plea bargain  

like her stillbirth  

that still lived.  

 Hinewai says she never met a māori  

   with an eating disorder.   i fire back.  god is a one-night stand. 

           but it is outrageous how fierce  

you’ve become. still, 

    here is my Tīpuna’s curl.  

                here it is clotting your drain.  here is still smoke  

free. here is Cape Reinga. here is death, the elevator   

and Hinewai says, ‘if we are still friends  

ten stories up.                        what happens  

  then. 

do we jump?’  

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