Day’s End

The door to your room is open
to the corridor. Unused. I am alone
with you and as flat as a car battery
in lockdown. Yet all that is required
of this moment is for me to sit
by your bedside, hold the space
for your leaving. How many ancestors
have sat like this for their loved ones
after death? Behind us;fear, doubt,
grief. And yet still I sit, surrender to love
and only my hands are cold.

Philomena Johnson

Philomena Johnson graduated from The Hagley Writers’ Institute in 2017 where her portfolio was short-listed for the Margaret Mahy Award. Her poetry has appeared in The Quick Brown Dog, The London Grip, takahē, Fuego & a fine line; in the anthologies broken lines / in charcoal, Voiceprints 4 and The New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology 2024. Philomena won The John O’Connor First Book Award in 2024 for her manuscript not everything turns away, published by Sudden Valley Press. She lives where the river meets the sea right beside Te Ihutai Avon-Heathcote Estuary where she gets to walk by water every day. Philomena tutors at the Write On School for Young Writers.