Aotea Square
Finally just us two
reclining on the shores of Aotea square
The absolute epicentre
of any bonafide
Auckland urban romance
I’m convincing you the pavers
could almost be sand
If you squint hard enough anyway
But I’ll say any old guff
just to make you smile
The sun’s evaluating the skyline
It’s making me drowsy
or you’ve doped me with the pretzels
I swear the odd gradient of these steps
is identical to a beach on the tip of the Coromandel
I can’t quite remember the name of
or perhaps I never knew to begin with
Your polygamy story soon jolts me out of my reverie
En masse the city dwellers
are lying around sun-drunk
sprawled all over my fake foreshore
in their suitably fake sunglasses
half watching the Chinese cultural festival
cryptically splash at our feet
We’ve got gigs across town from one another
so we’re play-acting
sulky besotted teenagers being torn asunder
by unspecified forces
much larger than our-tragic-selves
The IMAX sign looks down frowning, unconvinced
and for heaven’s sake, it would know!
Marcus Sellwood
Marcus Sellwood is a musician and occasional poet. He was born in central Auckland and has lived his whole life there. He likes to write about his experiences of the fast-changing city.