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Jasmine Grace

Aug 14
Love20

the clipped vowel – Roseleen Kaur

By 2026 runner up No Comments

the clipped vowel

i. i took a pair of scissors to my own name : r o s e [ I e e n] the last four letters sounded too
much like  a r r i v a l  sounded like a  v i s a  stamped on a tongue. it wasn’t that the teacher
stumbled : it was the way the leen vibrated too  i m m i g r a n t  in the air. i buried the suffix
in the playground dirt : so i could just be r o s e : a flower that was p l a n t e d   h e r e. i
turned my volume down until i was a

[ m o n o s y l l a b l e ].

ii. [ THE OVERLOAD]

india is a blunt instrument: the heat: a physical bruise : the honking is a fever : the dust is a
second skin i didn’t ask to wear : i am told i am returning : but my lungs crave the damp :
grey : predictable : chill of a kiwi morning. i love the silk : the saffron : the gold : but i am a
tourist in my own marrow : counting the hours until the sterile order of the departure lounge.

iii. [ THE COLLECTIVE DEBT ]

in the supermarket aisle : a headline flashes : a man : 3,000 miles away : wears a face that
matches mine. suddenly : the air in the dairy goes [ C O L D] the purse-straps tighten : a
stranger’s grip is a sharp frost : the side-eye is a blade : i am seventeen : carrying the crimes
of a billion strangers sewn into the lining of my school blazer.

iv. why is my skin a  u n i f o r m ? why is my heritage a li-a-bi-li-ty ? there : i am the
westerner who lost her tongue. here : i am the other who is asked to explain. i am a bridge
made of broken glass.

v. i am building a

[home]

in the static between stations. i am the girl who eats the culture but cannot speak the
source. i am the un-belonging : the ink bleeding across the border : belonging only to the

[ AIR ]

 


Roseleen Kaur
Year 12
Botany Downs Secondary College

Aug 14
Love20

The Left Spring’s Soft – Xavier Tapsell

By 2026 award winner No Comments

The Left Spring’s Soft

Rusted D-shackles in the footwell,
a flattened box of Winfield Red.
Twenty years on the same clay,
hands turn the ute on muscle alone.

His boy at the ramp, his whole life
packed into six boxes and a garbage bag,
a polo shirt buttoned where a flannel should be,
looking at the hills, his watch.
Anywhere but the house.

Ute’s running rough.
Needs a clean out.

The kettle was still whistling
when she carried her life out to the taxi.
He’d gone down to the woolshed instead.
oiled the handpieces till his hands stopped shaking.

Rain past Taihape,
yellow streaks smeared across the glass,
wipers dragging a dry, rhythmic scrape.

Still got the house in Hamilton?
Sold it. Nothing there for me anyway.

Meat pies from the Gull station,
pastry flaking into the grease on his trousers,
two cans of V rolling against the floorboards
every time the ute took a corner.

The kauri chest—still got it?
In the back shed. Why?
Mum said you’d burn it before you’d let her take it.

Wellington,
some concrete flat, gray fence,
a rusty trampoline next door,
someone else’s vape smoke drifting over,
One can cracked open in an empty kitchen,
the tab stinging his thumb.

How’s the missus settling in?
Dad.
He turns the can in his hand,
Working up to something else.
Sorry. Slip of the tongue.
How’s he, then?
Good. Busy with his own move too.
Right.
Good.

He drains the can, sets it by the door.
Don’t overload the trailer.
The left spring’s soft.

No horn on the way out.
Window cracked a finger’s width for the smoke to bleed out,
but the truth stays buckled in the passenger seat.
In the trailing lights, the dark rides heavy in the tray
like a small boy waiting for a destination,
a passenger he can’t drop off
no matter how many times he checks the tie-downs.

Bruised grey at his own gate.
Not the house. The bottom paddock,
the twin ewes due.
The first one: black-faced, dead in the frost,
its mother five yards off, looking for sweet grass.

He doesn’t curse.
He picks up the shovel
and chops into the frozen clay,
burying the lamb early.

 


Xavier Tapsell
Year 13
Tauranga Boys’ College