Leah Dodd
Country Music
(after ‘Snakes and Waterfalls’ by Nick Shoulders)
There’s a song you think I’ll like.
In the video, a man in the woods
yodels and whistles and sings about
Louisiana, his dog panting happily
for four whole minutes. I do like it.
A lot, actually. I watch it six more times
later, when I’m alone and the house breathes
with sleep and dark. I want to love somewhere
this much, each tree and cave and lake
heart in palm for the world to see.
The next morning, I suggest moving
to the American South. It’s a joke,
of course. You laugh and laugh
and laugh and I look at the oak tree
outside, full of Tūī and Kererū singing.
spawning season
all the rainbow trout are packed into the smallest river ever. a creek, really, and you might think wow can they even breathe before you remember a thing or two about trout or fish. they are so slippery and genderless that you almost envy them before you remember that most of them, especially the ones in this lake, will end up caught and killed by the large horde of White Men with Holiday Homes. the creek is so clear, crossed by a quaint cobbled bridge, which brings to mind Southern France, where you’ve never been, and makes you want to take a big breath in and say ahhh. you could watch them all day, these trout, rubbing up against each other like straight girls at the gay bar, laying their eggs and swimming toward a Better Place. you can almost hear their husky trout voices, murmuring sorry hon and scuse me Tina and Behind!, and you wonder which ones of them like to stir the pot or cheat or say to salmon I’ve lived here for fifteen years fine with none of your kind around and I won’t be told what to do by one of yours thank you very much. probably none. you really could watch them all day, but it’s the middle of winter and your boyfriend came all this way only to stoke fires and catch the flu and he’s busy puking up in the log cabin and taking too many cold & flu tablets and you’re starting to worry, so you better go back in actually, you better go make him a hot chocolate or rub his back. you better do something like that instead.
Last Call Nigel
when you were newborn,
milk-drunk, eyes akimbo
koi mouth gaping
you were like an old drunk man
downing his pint with sticky fingers
sinking to the bar like a ship
we called you ‘Last Call Nigel’
and he has made a comeback
this time swaggering, tottering
and other adjectives commonly used
to describe babies and drunk men.
it’s uncanny to see you upright –
we can’t believe it! this clump of cells
this lentil-sized thing, this mango
in my pelvis can walk?! we say:
he’s, like, a school-aged child!
he’s… a first year in halls!
he’s Last Call Nigel again!
and then you are running, snatching
apple chargers and poetry books
like forbidden fruit, and soon
you will jump climb skip
like the little imp you are.
Leah Dodd is currently studying for an MA in Creating Writing at the IIML. She was a National Schools Poetry Award finalist in 2015, and the recipient of the Victoria University Creativity Scholarship in 2017 for poetry. Her baby can now walk and talk… is he even still a baby?!