FREYA TURNBULL
MAMA
i watched the lambs do it / open like caves and let limbs fall out of them. i would not want to let
the thing inside me go. would keep it and its second skin if only not to be alone. i took plan b in a
macca’s bathroom, the tissue came later. i wondered if another freak of nature was behind my
navel, dreamed a two-headed innocent clawed my thighs on the way out. the neutered mornings
after where the neurons slept and i was taller than i remembered. where the lambs licked the
chopping block and i swallowed this ending down with energy drink. i think i like baby shoes
more than babies but my arms ache to hold a slick thing that has to love me. i could be a good
mother but i’m scared of mangling it.
BUZZCUT SZN
i’m dizzy on the bathroom floor and my lover is shaving his head. the whiteness of the back of
his neck a swan, bowed in supplication. i know where your skull fuses together, i say, hand on the
swoop of my love’s shoulder as i fix the back. i run the razor over tectonic plates of bone, the
tender spots. i am pure he says, and he makes a christian out of me with his belief in the baptist’s
blade. it’s summer and we are growing, even with all the shed hair collecting black and purple
like a bruise beside me. i know where his skull fuses together.
Listen to Freya Turnbull read ‘MAMA’
Listen to Freya Turnbull read ‘BUZZCUT SZN’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Freya Turnbull is a poet, student, and aspiring spectre from Pōneke. She has been featured in a number of publications, most recently the New Zealand Poetry Society’s paint me, Circular, Overcom, and more. She enjoys putting corpse paint on Barbie dolls.