TURBINE | KAPOHAU

LOVEDAY WHY

Cord

The women on Instagram have tattooed arms and are eating their own placentas.
I send mine off to a clinic       Strange to pack an organ
in bubble wrap            one
grown specifically for purpose and that you
pulled behind you like a home on a rope        across countries to more habitable terrain.

What came back was a small pot of foul-smelling dark capsules
‘Do not re-ingest your organ on an empty stomach’—
and your umbilical cord that someone had spontaneously
looped into the word LOVE before placing in the dehydrator.
This we still have

to possibly plant as part whēnua         one day           almost a burial
of your womb home in your new home as it seems we are still
not quite part of this land.

Perhaps with closeness to the river it will rehydrate
perhaps blood will loosen back into the earth’s veins
from this resilient shrunken cord. Perhaps it will pulse like a heart again.