MARY MACPHERSON

 

Sofa Meditation

 

Kaiteriteri

 

The way light jumps ripples,
a seagull flies over a white boat
and a butterfly pauses on a wall
makes me relax 
in creaking brown wicker.
Looking back, 
it’s easy to love singularity:
dry grass shrivelling in vacant lots,
a bird’s flight,
the swimmer in deep water
reaching for the bottom of the sea,
a woman 
floating through the air
on tiny cushions.

The Balcony

 
The visitor stands on the balcony
and points at the toy houses,
motorway and billowing sky.
He questions clouds and the city;
he needs to make the balcony real,
touching the iron railing,
     leaning into blue air.

The visitor likes to mince garlic
and watch onions in the pan. Instead
he stares at the carpet. Next door
is a bright blue pool. He wants to speak
about contradictions and how time
makes emotion unreal. He sips juice
and flaps clumsily in a big chair.

The visitor stands on the balcony.
He is afraid of the future and wants
to have a love affair. The visitor
hears an ocean in his enormous ears.
He takes off his clothes and dreaming
sleeps under velvet flowers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mary Macpherson is a Wellington poet and photographer. She completed Greg O’Brien’s Poetry Workshop at Victoria University in 1999. Photographs from her ’17 Days of Shopping’ installation were published in Sport 25.

 

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