Ill and Travelling

Haven’t worn shoes for two weeks until today,
and three quarters of my meals have been muesli.
The German man in the seat next to me is watching
Bible YouTube. Kid-vids, too—not prosperity gospel
self-help flimflam or anything to do with sin-scouring
or tongue-lolling, but cartoons of lions and coats
and loaves and fiery chariots. Maybe he’s sick as well
and can’t concentrate. He’s been an excellent seatmate.
You know the type: so nice he’d sooner be impaled
with umbrellas than forget to say thank you. Thank you
for the elbow room, fella. We’re like a matching pair.
16A and 16B are moving fast! Now there’s a video of
the ark filling up with funny long-limbed creatures:
flamingos, sea spiders, giraffes.

Erik Kennedy

Erik Kennedy (he/him) is the author of the poetry collections Another Beautiful Day Indoors (2022) and There’s No Place Like the Internet in Springtime (2018), both with Te Herenga Waka University Press, and he co-edited No Other Place to Stand, a book of climate change poetry from Aotearoa and the Pacific (Auckland University Press, 2022). He lives in Ōtautahi Christchurch.