Gone, Girl

 

I want to lean in to uncynical joy
eat fruit when my mouth
craves fruit        I will let my body sleep
for as long as it needs      I will
have a cry         in the back room of Café Laz
go out the first warm day
after a cold snap           and remember
what it is to be careless
with my body heat
to not have to clutch at it

peel off the layers one by one    expose
the soft hairs at the nape of my neck
my mind half an orange       every drop of juice
squeezed from it           the good plant shop
down the road closed and another plant shop
moved in          I walk past it
on my way home          give a little wave
to the driver who lets me cross the street           
stuff newspaper in the toes of my boots
and hope they are dry by morning
when I drag myself from sleep         to a little cat
breathing fish breath on my face   
she’s checking that I haven’t
died in the night             if you believe
the videos on the internet

the world is my husband and I am
a good wife       I air out the sheets on
bright days       drink coffee on an empty stomach
until I feel real               or at least
more real than my baseline       think about
gone girling myself        and my main concern is
who will continue to feed the cat            I’ve never
even seen the movie                 I just live
in the world                   and now it’s inside me

Ash Davida Jane

Ash Davida Jane is a poet, editor and reviews from Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Their second book How to Live With Mammals (Te Herenga Waka University Press) won second prize in the 2021 Laurel Prize. They are a publisher at Tender Press and reviews co-editor at takahē.