JOHANNA AITCHISON

 

here comes baby

 
I was in the Love 
Way, the Great Wanna. 
I was looking to fall 
on the right guy. 
 
He said, ‘I kind of adore 
waiting about a person 
in a big 40s car. Let’s 
ride aground, tie a 
romance down.’ 
 
I said, ‘I need 
a powder-rough dater, 
some Wow Stuff. Now, 
make me need you, 
for I oh! to hold someone.’ 
 
He sank the telephone 
into my desert heart, drew 
a criss-cross pattern 
on the walls of the 
invisible shrine. 
 
He said, ‘I’ll baby the dishes 
when the kitchen is too much. 
I wanna walk & talk want.’ 
 
He dived into my 
tragedy, tearing into 
our lovers’ walk. ‘Just 
don’t leave me bare, OK 
muscle man,’ I yelled 
 
out to the back 
of his leather coat as he 
walked into the pouring rain of a 
night lit up with a big, pale 
moon, already thinking 
about the cowboy boots he 
needed to walk into 
the next woman’s pop song. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Johanna Aitchison lives in Wellington and loves song lyrics. ‘Here Comes Baby’ sprang from her obsession with using the conventions of pop music in poetry. She was the winner of the 2005 Story Inc. Poetry Prize and has been previously published in SportTurbineLandfalland JAAM.