Jackson McCarthy
Prelude
Funerals happen.
You walk past one
and call it a Tuesday
afternoon; the sun
comes down. This
is how it happens.
The Earth
With my first serious lover, it was just like Samson in the Bible, though we both knew there was no Heaven. I had never lived in a building before, only houses, which coloured and flavored the night in unexpected ways. Buildings, by contrast, had a sense of repetition, each room furnished with the same office chair, lit by the same white light. Only once before, when staying in a hotel, had I discovered this new way of living. I looked in the mirror to find the back of the tap exceptionally dirty. Nobody ever thinks to clean inside a mirror. And as I continued looking around the room, I noticed how in other ways it had been prepared to be seen from only one perspective. In my room, Samson was wearing nothing but jeans and his head of long hair. I picked up the clippers and it fell like petals. Then in my hands his body was the bud and already fading. The way I love you has nothing to do with the Bible, he told me, weeping. I thought of the Pietà — I thought of Christ in His mother's arms — though I did not tell him this. He looked to me like a new and fragile thing in need of reassurance. Our children will cover the Earth, I told him. Our children will inherit the Earth.
Jackson McCarthy is a poet and musician from Auckland currently studying in Wellington. He was a finalist for the Schools Poetry Award 2021. His work has been published in Starling, Landfall, Sweet Mammalian, Bad Apple, and elsewhere.