Love language

“Language does not pour out of me,
but is something I’ve entered” – Jack Underwood

I’m at home in the big air.
Under the surest sky I’ve seen
I am touching your poem.
The one where you stood in the afternoon.
Stopped at a pedestrian crossing.
In movie magic lighting.
Moving towards me! Imagine!
And I do want a little forehead kiss.
In line at a medium tier rural café.
I will eat a huge slice of lolly cake.
You will drink a huge chocolate milkshake.
Everything will be just huge.
The feeling also enters the room.
And the river is there bending around us.
And we see ourselves reflected on the surface.
And I can hold my stomach to keep the pain inside.
And you will hold it from the outside.
Sometimes, by the river, I see my life as big as a movie screen.
Other times it is a loose stone to kick down the path.
On a loose-stone night I kiss the big air.
When I’m taking the bins out.
I touch the poem in a romance way.
When taking out the glass recycling.
Before walking over to your house.
In a romance way.
The clouds touching as the credits roll.

Stacey Teague

I wrote this poem on a weekend away with the poets. I was sitting outside on the front deck of our Airbnb in Raumati, trying to get some sunshine and this poem came quite quickly. I was thinking about a recent trip I had taken to Whanganui with my partner. I was thinking about the Whanganui river, wide and deep and moving. About how lives feel big and small. About being lost in thought on bin night. I was thinking about how it feels to let somebody hold the things that are hard to carry by ourselves. I was also thinking about how good lolly cake is.

‘Love language’ was originally posted at The SpinOff, March 2023

Stacey Teague (Ngāti Maniapoto/Ngāpuhi) is a writer and teacher living in Te Whanganui-a-Tara. She is a publisher and editor at Tender Press.