The view from here V

Breach

First check your meniscus
then step into the air
where Bluff lies silver-grey
in calm seclusion,

Sky oyster silk       like kissing
when once we used to touch      to scent
each other's skin          soft
as a thistledown clock.

Tomorrow the daylight hours turn back
towards a colder quarantine,
when trees hiss through their teeth
and sunlight leaves the deck;

This winter, to write at the outside table
I'll wear my old fur coat,
'Pichanaki' penned in some elder hand
on the note left in its pleated satin pocket.


Cilla McQueen
Motupōhue
April 2020
 

More poems in ‘The view from here’ series

The view from here — Ian Wedde

Takahe — Bill Manhire 

Cilla, writing — Elizabeth Smither

h e l l o   a n d   g o o d b y e — Michele Leggott 

Between Shingle Creek and Fruitlands — Brian Turner

In these troubled times — Vincent O'Sullivan