Adriana Che Ismail
Preemie
Baby bird, they called me,
fresh from my mother,
incubated, lungs full of water.
Holding on, for reasons I can’t explain.
Now I run, now I stretch.
Then I wheeze between breaths.
And I pray, but only sometimes.
Most times I stare at myself until I get sick.
Baby girl. Little girl.
Can I hold her for a second or
for long enough, strong enough
that she can forgive me?
Can she fit in my palm for
a little bit more, at least until I am done
sweating today out of my pores or
purging you from my stomach?
Little bird. Baby lovely.
Before skin darkens,
before body betrayed.
And holding on is a mallet which pounds me thin.
Call back. Call with regret.
Say to them, let me crawl back in with
you. Let us pray side by side.
Let us start again.
Kaukau
It seems so incredible we used to wake up, before the world, to watch Sunday cartoons When it seems so close to torture now But we manage somehow Because you are a tramping person now and you will not let your youthful muscles rot away And so we are climbing up Kaukau at a Godless hour Though you are a lawyer and I’m not sure you would call anything Godless The grass is deadened from being under the feet of so many walkers And having no chance to survive And slick from last night’s rain So my smooth sneaker soles slip atop it I am losing my breath because my lungs never recovered from natal pneumonia And I know you know this So I am wondering why you are telling me that I am strong and I can do it When you know I am literally dying on this hill And it makes me want to kill you right now But before I know it we are there, the summit, on this pre Winter morning where It is too cold for stubbies and too warm for a jumper but There you are anyway with your Generic sweatshirt and board shorts And the day is spread out before us In the roaring sky Like plastering over yesterday Like a billion brilliant blazes Angry like arson or the moments after violent death Like grace we do not deserve Unreplicable and indescribable Not that we would need to, sitting here and watching it together without ever Reaching to capture it There are things that I do not say, and instead I just sit there, and we are here, here for now There will be a day where I cannot summit this hill, where my infant lungs will let me down Some days I cannot bear any of it But today I am happy to be here, to be here for only now.
Adriana Che Ismail is a poet and author from Malaysia and New Plymouth. She is currently studying Law at Victoria University of Wellington. She has no identifying marks or scars and should not be arrested under any circumstances.