Tomorrow
an Aotearoa dispatch

at the end of the phone call
I say
I’ll ring you tomorrow
and mean it but know
it’s a luxury, a sweet promise
that may
     or may not
come to pass

it is spring for my mother, autumn here
and cheap tricks are still
the news, this man with his crowns
fake gilding everything
making mockery of good
taking time and more
from the world
because he can

*

we are built forward-looking
time, we hope, the giver of something
better
something different from today
we steel ourselves
for tomorrow
     seeing
if we can hold
– I think of āpōpō, this word, this
sense of soon

in German, tomorrow is a promise
of morning; in French and Spanish, too
handed down
from Latin mane
– there it is again, time
     tumbling
through centuries

*

in places where I have loved
we said à demain with a kiss
a cheerful bis morgen
or a nod and mañana
language confident
    morning 
on our tongues

*

a journalist told of a girl
who, when rushed on a stretcher
from a mound of broken
everything, asked, “رايحة على المقبرة؟”
Am I being taken to the cemetery?
 – that was six months ago
that today is this day
in Gaza, there is today after today after today

in Gaza language is dangerous
is death, is covered in dust
what is tomorrow in Gaza?

*

in Tanzania, when we said kesho
it meant something less certain
not ‘tomorrow’ but
     ‘not today’
and Bahasa’s besok offered
forward motion over days or weeks
time like water, finding
its path
       not clearly mapped
language keeping us
waiting
unspoken       space

*

I left my mother’s house
a suitcase of uncertainty
ziptied and checked
    my baggage
at its limit, carried
from Maryland to here

we spoke our vows to tomorrow
despite the weight of things
     rolled with my shirts
      tucked in a drawer
     folded in this poem

now I’m across
the international dateline
       my mother’s tomorrow my today
skipping through time, living
a small miracle
   – see? I said when I landed
     safe
it’s Wednesday already 

*

I ask a friend about tomorrow
in Ukraine
she says the word: завтра
but also tells me
it could be завтрашній день
        tomorrow-days

I think about
living in two places, tomorrow-days
there and here
time zones meaningless
simultaneity of loss

*

I send an email, promising
this poem tomorrow
and I mean it but turn over
the notion of
     not today
because that much
is certain

“رايحة على المقبرة؟”- Am I being taken to the cemetery?
from an article by Pacinthe Mattar, in The Walrus, 13 Nov 2024

Michelle Elvy

Michelle Elvy sent a series of weekly poem dispatches from the USA to post on Poetry Shelf. This poem is the final in the series and is sent from Aotearoa, her second home.

Michelle Elvy is a writer, editor and teacher of creative writing. Her books include the everrumble and the other side of better, she has edited numerous anthologies, including Te Moana o Reo | Ocean of Languages, edited with Vaughan Rapatahana (The Cuba Press), and the forthcoming Poto! Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero| Short! The big book of small stories, edited with Kiri Piahana-Wong (MUP).