I scarred the paintchips on a doorframe,
making my way through,
with wicker baskets of fresh cut
                         wine-white flame;
jutting, into that summer,
ready to empty my pockets
      of the careful pressure
  I'd built up behind ribs,
for a heart:
once in hand,
  beating and dreaming, alive,
like that wind I'd cherished,
   for its consistent transparency.

so, you,
  under the ocean of sheets, engulfed and over it,
and, I, well,
   I was wrong.
   I lost the match, to bled-green stares out of river stone eyes.

I was on your porch, it took seconds,
   a mere shadow, incarnate momentarily,
as
     the world derobed, curtain pulled back,
and bitter realization
           fell, like a single leaf, or a storm.

Left,
to stand by, and watch the feathers drop,
as that
   flock of birds,
    torn wider than the midland prairies,
                                 made patterned migration,
leaving my hands, cupped
and empty, same
  as I had started out,
   when I'd coursed the same mistake of
     letting the rain in,
      when I'd already drowned,
        time after time
          after time,
           before.

Some-times in the cast
shade of beauty, life,
our greatest glories feel
the most hollow of
them all, having
dispersed continuously through
our pre-aspirations
& post-adulations. The
only true full-
complement of joy
passes through us, as
a breeze of no measure; we
are doomed never to linger
on contentedness for
more than a
moment's
breadth.

in singular dissection by batting lashes,
a regular pattern emerges:
to fall in eyes, change mind,
a hermitian allegory spun out
fingertips clustered on lies and
lonesome seeps in through the
concrete floor. i can't stand up.
i can't hold myself up, now.
i just collapse, most days.

the tides roll up and engulf the city in
a single blow. there is nothing but
drowning; i am so used to this that
i do not notice the corpses. just
my own, in the mirror. there
is no difference today. there is
nothing that is not the same.
the iteration carries through.

circles traced circles. curses
thrown to the wind. you don't
even know. you don't even
know. you don't even know
and i could just tell you.
but i won't. i'll just be sore
and sorry. bloodied, like usual.

and i can't hold myself up.

but i can carry you home,
tonight i could feign anything you
wanted of me. if only you'd want
some small ****** up something
like me.

if only

forgot to say everything or
anything. forgot to tell you
how often the stars rotate
whilst you spin twinkling
patterns out in footsteps, two
moments ahead. been so
**** down& out but
still still still still cascading
on this feeling, lingering out
of nights traversed. 'sometimes'
weighs down on me. sleeping
slow, to stay alive. to see you,
shimmering, lithe.

maybe there's nothing else,
these waves crashing
foreign chaotic tongue at
fingertips we held at rend,
this unhollowing ghost
is all yours.
this only moment.

deep breath, filling out,
this empty universe glimmering
between collected palms.
all else forgotten. just
you, just i.

so far, so great, & the promise
of so long lingers on tomorrow;
hung on tenterhooks, staggering
sparks run through the early hours
as realisation hovers. that only less
than the length of a week, now, may
hold my consignation to this side
of another stretch of soil, another
long dream.

& everyone i've ever and never met
will look up at stars the same, but
all my constellations, bent n mirrored,
will flare up and light out footstep
patterns like eye-blink,
surveying all that was lost and found.

but, for now,
gales whip up a storm outside,
like the electricity planted
in my gut. another
momentary awakening.

small chill sets through past& present
tides' turns; although, somehow, i've been
sweating more, lately. nerves, or insides
slowly lit& spread. but, if you truly
were wildfire (and, sometimes, you
are), i'd stay the kindling that i am,
anyway.
                   the light and
length of days
                              shuffle,
as normal steps, in this adjoining dance,
and i try not let it show but,
im still feeling the same.
still aching and burning.
little shivering hope, sat by a
little wavering candle, whispering:
you might change your
mind, but
people seem to stick to
their songs, and
i'm not quite sure if
you'll change your tune in time, but

i still adore you, so
i'll just keep waiting,
for now.

but i can walk around, having
written all the angles between
streets in the ravines in
my skin. and i can still
stare at the sky, from hilltops,
and know maybe the world doesn't
have to carry so much meaning or
get dizzy whilst spinning or even
notice that,
in its silhouetted waltz,
the moon, brilliant& alight, is quietly
headed out to sea.

being a discarded paper bag
in a sunbleached ditch roadside
moment, i rode past on the
stifled cycled exhaust fumes of
the intercity from oamaru back
home: second home, fifth home; how
many times have i left home,
now? being a stinging
sensation in the back of the
throat of some lost child
(me), some lost ******
human (obviously
me), this is the only thing
i'll ever regret being a
{oh, i am just a}
thought process cycling,
stifled, thinking, through
ultraviolet-polarised perspex
there, with
you with him, and he's
making you smile, and my
head hurts
just
a little more and i
fall
a little further down, like
apples drop from trees, like
lies drop from your insides,
and i mutter something stupid and true,
like: "i'll get over it this
time" and stay still stay
still, i will get over it this
time, just i, yours {never} truly. so, do
you get that feeling
like you're losing something,
(because i don't need you)
like you're caught mid-fading,
(because i don't want you)
but you can't figure out why?

i hope you feel it in your smile
tonight, darling.

i scatter breadcrumbs pre-dawn as
your light draws into
this empty hemisphere: full of
life, lack of the
sweetness dwelling behind eyelid's
closure i
was awake to monitor the slivered
rim, the same stars as glow
soft around your engorging pupils.
gutterwork about fingertip traces.
i can almost see
your ghost. no smoke entices
my lips, not yet. i've
no need to any longer sing
of meaningless vices. i've
got bigger things hefting
weight over my shoulders. i'm
running short of endlessness.
yet, from the guts of this library
some lie dissolves.
my body vanishes through painted
concourse. the finer points scatter.
the big picture rushes to shake
hands, to distil spine. between
us, there ain't nothin' new
anywhere. so, i throw back
some mineral-heavy water to
wade back out of the ocean:
a slow headache, a continual loss
i drown myself in. i could
get outta here and increasingly want to.
increasingly want (well, this part is easy).

at day's length, arc of my spine or
hallucination i twist into desperation. divide.
falling into slow symphonies, movements, i
regain breath just a moment to gasp some regret. to think what happened or happens. willing, nothingness and me, we
touch lips and contract. an ocean if we could tear apart. some space, some time to time fulfilment could write arrears: the pain
was (is) all worth it.

yet, i'm still feeling worthless.

call up in spring, maybe maybe maybe
                                          maybe,
I've caught mine in the stream:

                 hollow things.

hollow, hollow, seeing and free
directions, contortions
cool down, riverbeds of
flowers that sun made
in dark spot phase turning to
alive alive alive alive alive
breathing cold warm cold, nothing

  any
                                            more

ripples like the stilts feet fell through to
carve square pegs in the holes in my
skin and feign ignorance to let up
sunspot light fading writhing
keeping me alive alive
alive alive alive
all through
this gold
cursed
night

held up in gutterwork masterpieces,
half a shard of torn and ragged paper edged on,
where once it bore, proud and in eager definition,
a reminder of little importance or,
a note of sweet insincerity or,
the last refuge of an eviscerated mind;
and, lost to entropic freedom,
no-body would care to ever even want to begin deciphering those smears.
not that they could, anyway.

the death of parking lot culture,
they say,
is all down to the skin on the teeth,
of a couple earthquake-gowned security wardens,
and the irresistible clamour
of city lights:
"just gotta get away, get outta this place" you say,
when you haven't slept
a real night
in three or so months, at last count, in the best-case,
whereas the real tragedy
is the drizzle,
that you're sure
will never,
ever,
cease to fall,
inside of you,
even though you keep telling yourself,
it's still just a lie.
it's all just a storytime fabrication.
it's all just waiting to fall apart.

and you're just hoping it's sometime soon.

with just keys, right pocket, as witness,
truly,
i would fall a little
more with
you close enough, with
you i
could go out every night
or sleep just a little
easier. we slip
into patterned strides,
eyes ablaze under the enclosure of
sodium streetlamps.
through scraps of sienna cloud,
one star emerges:
a steady twinkle in your eyes,
a heartbeat,

a truth and an intractability.

two seconds,    i planned
just one moment to love you,
but  those two seconds    drag on:
                          two hundred days, a smile, a night's passage,
                            two years, another winter;
                  leave, return, repeat.
this cycle of wanting you,
  and never wanting to
                       but, who am i,
           to tell me what to do?
                              two weeks, a pulling of sinew:
                                            an arm loose,
                        a finger,                   tracing lines on the floorboards
                                   'cause i don't
                                               want to stand up,
anymore.
                           i'll just lie here,
                      ok?
            like i lie to you,
every time i don't speak,
hoping you will,
hoping you'll say,

                   you're not sorry
anymore.

from the balustrade, the canopy,
comprised of leaves and rooftops and
a diminishing colour-set above
tastes of retreat. familiarity.
she came down to my level,
spelling out instabilities and inscrutinabilities,
like a vague ruffle sent through
harmonious and imperfect hairlines:
this slight haze of separation,
a delicate circling
lust, the vulture of the ninth;

lying in wait, i sit, still,
in the corner, watching the
ceiling for hours,
singing sadnesses like,
oh no, it won't happen this way,
when have i ever learnt?
winning's a single blackout, but
i'm still awake,
still stuck stuck stuck stuck,
already given up and out.
still awake, seven
hundred and fourteen days,
a list of crimes, a handful
of loose opinions, a
devastating need;

never had i felt as if
i couldn't live, without
something i never meant to
want, this much.

with rainfall, she rescinds,
she's discovered i am but dust.

from dust, i'm made rain.

made a fool in case,
jest in case the tide
turns i can't say
anything& it's slowly
eroding cliff faces. caught
run on to shiver under
swathes of light i
desert the anxious encompassing
my own grip on this spinning
confusion
and oh,
how light hangs about you in
motion i am too deep here i
am too gone the
desk lamp goes cold my own world follows
this chaos in breach
this pattern to fold
under

once, you stood tall and bold
against the sky
and said, in all simplicity,
that we are forever stuck
misunderstanding the threads
that run through our lives.
i feverishly agreed, and
already could not make out
sand or sky, and
knew that i was no exemption,
but never to be
cursed or normal, either.

and the sky opened up,
and, steady we,
as we'd prayed for rain,
whispered of continental drift
and the draperies of unseen
seasons. but nobody knew or
knows, and aperture of eyelid
makes no difference. evidence
in broken glass, run smooth
again, that pain can turn out
pretty.

so, we outstood clashes & contrast
patterns in earlier lights, twenty-
twenty ways to unlearn the wrongs
burnt between our sinews. and i did
believe. and i did believe. but time
barrels back and forth, and belief
structures erode out, for better or
for worse, from under
our feet.

but yes, i could
smile at you like an electric fence, could
**** myself over in
a field of happiness, resemblant,
there i stand,
on fire or just waking.

of course, neither of
us needs that, though. my
motions jar and disseminate truth
throughout me:
of foundation stone, or
of necessary monuments i
am hardly built, i
cut breath, breakfast and no class, i
can fall under a bus or
in love with you,

and the dull ache would remain;

and these days would still part.
and some small town would sleep,
all the same. so say
anything, or just idle and
stay and i'll go spiralling
down all the same.

a pure bird sings out in the hedge,
as i sing up a storm
out in the street.
wanderin', as
usual*.

to fold nicely into
next-moments, to heed
and stifle breath subtly
lit up, glow
on the belly of the
sky mild-cloudy afternoon
we sit and spin our threads.
find small spiders on the sheets,
crawling toward the sun, first,
as we all should've been.

bent n frayed back, all of
this clambering, and all of
the world, and its futures
laid out on 'til
projective infinities,
sometimes halt breath
but
there's plenty o' time,
vast oceans, lightyears
spilling out of the woodwork,
marbles downgutter,
glistening victory &
everything else.

yr light, sweet shine,
sweet universe, blurred
n all glory, as usual,
rains on in
soft patterns.

a dull and cyclic shimmer
on the surface of a slow
life, an evaporation held under
the fingertips of passage.

priority, like the flow
of days ain't matter
much.
the mind reels.

importance once was mulch,
out in the garden.

this new foraging-ground,
syllables, all good exists
as the shadow of action. all
evil lies in the same stroke.

under heaving clouds, dissolving
we, sway with or without purpose.

say you knew certainty,
for i can barely imagine truth.

a small & flittering day.

from heaving waves i emerge
and wander, hapless, forward,
to shallows, to piled sand and
grasses like thickened tongue.
sallow and saltbreak, this heart
has set to mend.

across field and timberline,
teeth gnash; but now they
belong to i. now, the proud
stretches of tussock weave
song through my chest. now,
lonely is an auxiliary quantity:
heart in hand, my very own,
soft clay to mould.

let us get drunk on
the stars and burdock tea.
let me find your fingers
across a chasm i clamber
up out of, only to breathe and
kiss you. i ask not for long-
desired salvation. i have
poured my own. i've enough
left to bathe you in light,
or at least to pry open your
leaf-litter eyelashes. i can
separate want and caprice.
i can want you.
                             let my desire
face west and cast to bush,
to flint, to corrals of snowfall.

i've dined in all great halls, but
i'd rather sit in your room,
for now.

through the cusp of
predawn heavy dark i woke,
one knee too cold to
feel. stars imperfectly ablaze;
radial fractions between
soft fingersplits in overlying canopy.
at ground level, spinning
slowly, i pried a small hole
out of my cocoon of moss. drew
legs to chest. felt clean air wash
up and over me. this is all that
matters. everything. acres alone,
save trapped stoat or the small
hawk in my ribcage. kea call
up at pearl flat; hours later,
i thaw. i rescind no sentiment.
and i dare not take back a
mote of motion. my
hands mend you sweetness on hazy
days the sun careens through
dust and valleys.
                                endless spurs
on all horizons to clamber to
you, or just to find me. endless
convection to spread wing under.
endless permutations of lovers; but,
of course, nobody else
would near suffice.

down a darkened trail, sleep
heavy on shoulders, i waltz with
torch dying in one hand. beating
heart in other. a fine
day crawls up over
peaks; i sigh, smile,
endlessly think
of you.

I lack will to put down any word,
unsure in what to let out, in vague strains and standard refrains and
I feel like a fog, settling over a row of hilltop pines,
    like I've nothing left, short of to get up and try.
  
    but I won't try, I won't try,
   anymore,
  no, not if you won't
give me a sign or reason,
               please;
just give me anything    to believe in,
because I keep running out of those,
                                               of time,
and it's still just
                                                    you,
                             turning my mind
into dreamsoaked wishful hopes,
             and that subsequent collapse into hopelessness,
               and all I know, in this,
is how lost this small, sad person is,
or seems to feel like,
                                 on any average day.
just like any other day.

my insides reel, as typical as could stay. only in slow coils, though. only in long sighs. still breathing, twinge of sad, but i saw your light in the sun. found peacefulness in moments between. gratitudes, to a world that somehow strung us up& out to turn to dust. and here i stand, slowly coiling into little little little happy dust. is that so strange. can't tell. don't mind.

in a haze of morning hours, scrambling for paper, amidst regular intervals of tingling:*

days splintered by loveliness, sharp aches,
clustering thoughts of blue snares. summer's
decline. your eyes. tumult.

but, what can or can't be done? seemingly
everything. i just hide. second nature.

paradise by weekend, far reaches
before long. isolation held in
firm grip. substitutions for the
lonely: mud, rock, leaf, water.
simplicity.

and then, as clear as sunlight,
another visage of your eyes,
grand blue snares;
a warm, glowing scar,
i am full of glimmer and
a recurrent dull ache. can't
help it. don't stop.

affections ran deep like
trenches, swift like gutters,
rained upon, forever.
nameless breath sent to or from
this greater scheme,
the mechanics of my inner chest,
sorrow poured out over the stars.
all seemingly as distant.
i miss you always.

but, you, wild& capable,
carrying everything with a grin,
give no reason for lament.
you, out there, behind doors
or in thickets, thatching all
skies with rivets of joy.

and, i, under slow-beating sun,
ain't seen to smile so much in
forever. but all flying creatures fly.
as misery did migrate, so too
do fear and consistency, heartache
and certainty. such is the path the
world will always spin over.

so, i write out new and old songs
on rust-laden heartstrings. lay
lips on nothing, typically. keep on
breathing, singing, laughing and
spinning, as the world does, knowing
all the while that in the recesses of
my chest you'll be somewhere, spinning
all the same, and i'll just be here,
poring over paper, trying to
figure the right pattern, to
speak words language won't.

i'll miss you, always.

lost, one rung out through the scrub.
nothing i didn't need
anymore. matagouri beneath
heavy soles, the speargrass gave
me new skin. evenings
glazed over quick. dreams
curled up in my sleeping bag,
never touching me, dragged
'em to the tops, shook
'em out. i can sleep fine, now.
even in retreat, bathed in city
lights, foraging without snow,
gulping down the same old
chlorine i had lived with. oh,
antiquated i, now so deep in the
murk of this tunnel passed. i'll
make sure to miss you, albeit
minimally.

the cairn crop will spread out,
encompass frivolous dust-clouds;
from lowlands i shall stamp up
out of this trench i've so
meticulously hollowed. taste of
new victory fresh on tongue,
knuckles torn, eyes bright.

oh, new skeleton. nothing will
halt these unfurling wings.

Flittering feathers write sonnets
in soaring frequencies;
taking in the ocean at once,
I felt ripples brought to standstill,
damped by second's refrain,
curled back into the
picturesque blue written ahead,
but
no cloud harbours the ceiling,
no late words shown, jotted down
by the
indifferent and
invariably disappearing breeze.

The latterwork of these days took it up,
and hung it out
on lines stretched across skies and time,
betraying tender surfeit, in moments
torn out,
and,
leaving only
vague traces of
woodworn prose,
spilling out my last sentiments:

"we, once,
were alive,
if only for a moment."

In dreams she holds small collections
of sandy flowers,
above the shoreline,
as the dichotomous cluster takes theirs,
behind a fragmentary grain
in the blacksmith's hide;
written, again, are those seasick letters,
wrung out
in the dead heat of the forge,
the demands of strangers,
in stone buildings by the fireplace,
electric heater, off,
the inbetween reeling
of slightened accomplishments,
the scent of oil,
left over, from the husk of noon.

Miss and want, over again,
missing beguilement in afternoon's repose.

"come back...",
but she ain't the one gone.

under the frigid sky i
slow& wonder; somehow
gather hope. pass under
bridges. feel the same, et
cetera- the same, always.(
sometimes, there's no storm.
or, at least, as far as an eye can see.
)sometimes, we get hollow. if i
am, i am
happy& hollow, with you,
though.
                   know this, always.

green and gold were the days i
spent learning the architecture
of your smile. the hues still colour
these afternoons in abstract: small
patterns in the woodwork. an
accumulated sunbeam, late
morning.

continue, sing songs. breathe
most of the time.
someone once
wrote:
               "life is but a joke if
you make it through laughing"

The rain came down.

I sat on the doorstep,
eating tinned peaches,
and the rain fell.

Walking out, into the city,
life falls in one-two beats;
being nothing and comfortable,
the architecture stows straight lips,
moves on, the rain falls.

Freight rolls, wet tracks northbound,
over-bridges exuding fine china,
two fishermen idle away remaining hours;
concrete bunches the rain into shallows.

How hollow the sea, that home,
the crooked lines of the inland peninsula;
how strange, this routine, in
how so very full of emptiness I have become,
like the rain, having fallen upon ebbing tides.

The rain no longer falls.

all in footprints i
throw onto the side
walk i mesh with
patterns laid out
like so many
fractions of leaves
caught in an under
tow, when
autumn emerges once more and
streams down the hall, i
can't remember
why
i ever thought at all
that these splinters
inside of me
would just dissolve;
or how
i ever got so
down and out.

little by little, fractures
develop. little by little, i'm
breaking down.
and,
for an eye's blink duration,
i finally understand,
what has come to be, the
sapling of reason i might be able to breathe
a little longer or
curl away, until
the lights in your eyes
become slowly emptying stars,
gracing some horizon, once again,
like
before i found i'd ever fall for you,
and the split-second it took to change that.

'cause, now,
i can't stay asleep,
i can't sleep, can't
find sleep, amongst these tides,
i can't sleep anywhere,
can't
          do this
anymore, {for the thirty-seventh time, I whisper.}

the moment dissolves.
awake, eyes closing.
the splinters don't budge.

still awake,
twisting nothing.

days dance down on strings i so often mean to
tug at, yet end up leaving, to dangle loose in
the semblance of breeze we pass between. caught
yr eyes like an ocean. made an idea, but don't got
the follow-through. it's easy to stay still; is it so bad?
is it so bad? here, i find way less dreams, but less don't
destroy me a thing. so i'll just keep on & breathe, & cut out in
the long haul. i can't keep this up. such a waste, in so
many colour schemes. pretendin' i ain't losin' sleep. i fell deeply. i fall
always. and if it's you, well, it's you; and i don't pretend anymore like
i know the world for certain, or even that the world can be certain. i don't
have a clue & thus love all of the intolerable patterns in their in-
evitablity: what makes you, me n' everything else. so, don't give up. don't
give up, just keep going & i will go, too. and if you move along i
promise not to get so ****** up about it, & if we don't move i'll
shoulder my half of the blame & love you even more. not like
i wouldn't anyway, not like i'd say it anyway.
                  - the city just shrinks, and where i've slept -
                                                               ­                    shoot, i'm not
losing anything. thought i'd lost it all, but there is no loss!
there is only what you hold, but it is all grains of sand & they
do all slip, eventually, otherwise the ground would just be rock.
  silt & loam, the world is now rich and fragrant with my lost
friends, it needs 'em more'n i do, i'm happy, i'm exploding
with light in this evening. i can smell the toxins leaking.
i'm sorry i've been so **** down, but it's only 'cause i keep
missing you so much. so much. so very much, but it only
hurts happy & my sweetnesses grow by the second & i hope
you feel the warmth every morning, the light i blot up
to save the sky from this endless night we sometimes can only see.

if only you open your eyes and shift to smile in the glow.
here i will be, in flesh & bone, crossing electrons over your lips.

would I could I have gotten
you, but I have this:
but I hold my downfall
between bubbles, or
between slurring fingertips;
pressure
loss, diffident
indifference,
bitter delirium, I
wake through the
marshes of all
thoughts I call mine, but
she, with quivering hands,
pulls trumps and
bares teeth and

i, small creature i,
decompose another fraction,
break and bend and
swallow no pride, tonight.

so hallowed, these lives!
like I lie, in-between
awake or no such dream or
the pursuit of impossibility:
an appetite turning these
wheels to drive us each home to
each of our own tiny
fallacious undestinies,
where lined veins underhandedly
tighten and leave,
stumble or bleed;
traces of the same want and amount of nothing.

from lustgarden cradled in concrete i
turn corners, i
recompose, with eyes alight. i
bare teeth, i
wake and bleed,
and still see.

I still breathe.

les étoiles s'allongent dans les champs des chambres noires,
les mers, perdues dans le papier-nuit des temps,
un poisson glisse en aval
et,
le sommeil des pelouses,
vu d'en bas hier soir,
dure encore.

la lune, un orateur dans les bois; elle dire:
"j'oublie le ciel d'azur,
je deviens le nageur à heure du dîner
jusqu'à l'éclipse d'aube,
je crie sous le vide,
sous l'eau d'octobre, se termine,
et
la marée, sur ces mers,
s'affaiblit
en bruit de rêve."

et moi, dévisageant la solution des points claires,
miniscules et faible lueurs,
je m'anime,
encore endormi, toujours,
toujours endormi,
tant que les arbres respirént,
tendres et lents.

wake up on the other
side of noon, bottle of
whiskey within grasp.
start sluggin'. who needs
today. water runs in
slow patterns through
arteries, woodwork,
some stranger's teeth.
rain runs inside of
me, coalescing, cold,
pure. washing away
the troubles of yesterday
in exchange for this
new sky. it still
looks the same. in
exchange for this day's
melancholia: it will
persist and hang,
a fog to stumble on
below. a tired footstep,
to spurn dreams where
there's something else
here. to hide from
the nothingness that
falls in fat drops from
potential.

Loose glasses shimmer beneath the tune of looser morals. I hear the drinks spatter, intention belied by raucous jest. Toupee like frayed lightning, red-nosed, he leads the pack, insists on staying drunk, rather than sitting at their table. Tones, moody, hypnotic, just waltz around the outer rings of paying ears. Customerial fashion: wax political, smug murmur; who will tip this French waiter the most? The electric wig stares vulnerability into my skin-grasping ensemble. A man in front of his wife, tongue spattering over my appearance, and tonight I can’t tell if he’s hitting on me, or if this is just how they always speak.

  French waiter saunters in through the corridor, kisses them all on the cheek, takes my hand. Lips two millimeters from my veins. Heart skips, slight. I feel his breath, there on my hand, for the next hour. I would have  kissed him back, if we didn’t have the same taste in men. All the waiters here have that effect. The phone chimes, me just some answering machine. Prerecorded. I feel like people call up, testing. Questioning: why a New Zealander at a French restaurant? Parlez-vous Francais?

  Most of the time, my eyes are torn to the wide glass walls, to the harbour. To get a glimpse of the lights on the palcid waters. Watching the sunset kiss the hilltops, draping its simmering cold cloak over the buildings, as tiny people race home to their absolute importances. Fires in houses turning on, as the spotlights on Te Papa fade to cold grey. My favourite place is the kitchen. Behind the glamour, the pale blues and pale pinks, lie these white tiles, this plain room, filled with chef-de-cuisine jokes, the pastry chefs acting out Statler and Waldorf; laughing together from their arches.

  Back at my desk, the night begins to diffuse in, a stalking black cat, no lack of prey. All that can be seen within the darkness are the crisp square windows of this conscious, some lone stranger walking against the water. Left to ponder his relentless thoughts. In another world, a customer offers his opinion; his companion purses her lips. Extended smile, occasionally, to relinquish some silent apology. I smile back in turn. Vicious cycle. Of course, she knows how I understand. Frequent reprimand: talking too much to customers. This relaxed manner of hospitality is lost to the French. How easy it is, to spot a New Zealander in this crowd. The profuse, oblate, continuous laugh. Goes up to the bar, grabs their drink with their own hands. Never let a chair be pulled from underneath you, never let a napkin fall into your lap. I can feel the radiant annoyance, the wait staff just trying to do their job.

  I absolutely adore it.