YOUR STREET
I can track the records
three-something-pm, some weekday
predictions of rain; when I disembarked
my heels sank into half-dried earth
—almost crawled out of my stockings
and into the soil if it weren’t for your hand.
—–What’s this, then?
Some weight pressing all the air out my lungs
but you got my weight, all is fair in whatever.
A potent swig of the sun, oh, I missed it.
Would I still drink it? No, but the longing,
it still does something dizzying to me.
—–I haven’t been here in ages.
Myself, the lion in a sheep’s den.—–Incoherent.
Not in my right mind, I justified, I justify
every half-formed chorus I refuse to pen.
Those red glasses sitting on my bookshelf
took their toll on my nose, tanned around it,
gave me headaches, I think I felt one coming on
—–Come here.
I would be a bad corpse. I cannot lie still—
one time the tremors spread to my hands, splayed
on a video camera. The stage might as well have shook.
The story has nothing to do with you, by the way.
Perhaps you’d rather hear something else?
I blanch at your street sign. Is that better?
Ysabelle Casimiro
Year 12
Baradene College of the Sacred Heart, Auckland
