JANIS FREEGARD

 

The Last Great Beehive in Willis Street

 
I want to bite into her beautiful tall hair that looks like 
red candyfloss/ it will taste of cherries & department 
store essences// the preoccupations of buyers and 
travelling salespeople will melt in my mouth/ it will 
be crunchy/ & delicious 
 
each day it is gravity-defyingly higher/ constructed 
from thin strands of toffee// standing behind her, 
reaching up, I feel I could infiltrate its sweet, brittle 
boundaries/ & release her inner bees 
 

The Astronauts

 
earth’s one blue eye stared back at them 
they were smaller than they’d ever been 
 
& after the descent, giants for a day 
or was it a month? everything looked paler 
 
the space to their wives unbreachable (what was it like?) 
vodka peyote Church of the Latter Day Saints 
 
they couldn’t see a way back 
one sells autographs at Star Trek conventions 
 
another took to acrylics but did the moondust last? 
or is he in his backyard at midnight 
 
rubbing dirt particles into fabric 
to cut and fix on beaten plywood; to sell a gritty dream 
 
a speck of possibility 
out beyond the reaches of possession 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Janis Freegard lives in Wellington with an historian called Peter and a cat called Spike. She has attended some of the IIML workshops such as this year’s Radical Revision workshop. Her writing has appeared in a range of journals and anthologies, including Turbine 02. In 2001, she won the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Award.

 

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