TURBINE | KAPOHAU

CLAIRE ORCHARD

Helicoptering

I’m at my desk, daydreaming
a scenario in which, instead
of requiring regular inhalations
of oxygen to stay alive, we have to
breathe in the ease of others to survive

when I hear the wup wup wup
of the helicopter hovering overhead,
a sound that always makes me think
of people who have fallen badly
in the wilderness of Te Urewera,
of Vietnam and that never-met uncle,

but a quick check out the back window
reassures me it’s just Judi next door
moving her electric flymo methodically
across her small rectangle of lawn;
she looks happy enough.