TURBINE | KAPOHAU

While my house in the early 80’s
     yawned drum machines and synthesisers,
you fell in
with a San Franciscan set,
     a house green 
     with photosynthesis; violins
aah-ing
in the sun of the dining room table.

Ten four-year-old fingers
     learned to sing.

When ten, 
we socialised.
No one told us 
     that cucumbers on the eyes
do bugger all, really —
that masks 
     won’t help skin cough 
     out its 
          toxins
(only inner organs do that,
smokeless in flat little bellies)

A decade
     of silliness
and we’re allowed to be drunk,
small, small price.

We’re too scared to cut our hair.
Atoms remain
          split like ends.
     Everyone
thinks their age is the best, and the ugliest

but always, when we talk on the phone,
the same, fond sound of your dining room
and someone’s violin
echoing,
echoing from one plastic fist
               to the next.

you dislike
          hearing sad things
especially in summer,
but my mother
finally thinks to cook a meal,

opens the wine, pots the pasta,
changes her mind and goes to bed. 

She was dressed for sleep
               anyway.
Lemony tortellini 
cools
in its own sweat.

Six three oh.
The news is halfway through,
but all those
          other voices rise —
on your streets the people come and go
talking of isobars and global
     warming; ice islands
          stretching apart,
floating their own way
     over recalcitrant seas.

Down by your lagoon
students buy rum gelato,
young burghers hoping
     for love
by ice cream.
          If they sit
and dangle their feet, they see
a few flying fish, pinnacling
     above the cool water like satellites.

But my mother, Wellington, you have overheated.
Your stubby fingers besot her, they make
everything 
          seem acquainted.
Potent city, 
     she cares for you,
she wanders
at your palms.

Seven oh oh.
The fish in the lagoon
     mouth tiny bubbles
and do not
leap. My mother sleeps, with windows open,
     breathing by reflex
as I
clear the kitchen.

On your streets, the people think of evening;
far and quiet, those lips of ice still falling.