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Elliot McKenzie

U & me baby, butch 4 butch apocalypse dreams


If we are larvae on a long, long thread twirling
maybe we won’t have to pay rent

or pretend our genders.

We can squat in a holiday home
tether goats to the porch

weave fish traps

carve our names in hearts along the coastline.

& there will be no marriage celebrant, no doctor or surgeon

only calcified, ossified treasures & dried seaweed bladders.

We’ll loot some really skux gear from hunting & fishing
I don’t know how to shoot an animal

but I do know how to gut one.

No more boxes piled at our doorstep
no more targeted ads about ball trimmers

only darning our clothes by the fire under a bright moon

& kissing each other big on the mouth.

I watch your pixels sleeping in the red of your room
I hear my own heart like kererū wings.

I’m learning to bake bread. There are pantry moths in the flour
a green larvae curled in on itself like a tiny finger.


Elliot McKenzie is a fine arts student & chicken dad living in Tāmaki Makaurau. You can’t find their poetry elsewhere because it’s not yet been published.