Loretta Riach
Reverse Tragedy
(after Matt Rasmussen / for a free Palestine)
A baby in the arms of a small child
running backwards across a street,
which is having debris lifted from it
as if it were thousands of spores
brushed up into streaming light
In fact, everything is rising
A whole city springs to form
Many houses, many beds,
assemble from fine dust
and are filled with busy days
No blood is spilt— every cut
is filling back up, life
streaming through every uneven gap,
skin warm from sun and
softened by gentle touch
And fruit is unripening on vines
which then coil back down into an earth
that is not filled with anybody
Children leap up from the dirt—
an empty hole fills itself back in
A Dinosaur as King of the Shepherds
after visiting the museum and seeing the bones
why shouldn’t we be impressed upon the earth
did this day not mean something like all the rest
our arms freckled over in dead languages
when we are in the sea our limbs spell out
sentences of our time together
there is no way but forwards
the thigh bone of a dinosaur cast in plaster
crossing the sea in a cargo hold
the shepherd who found the bone
sitting amongst the dust with his head in his hands
meanwhile a flock of lost sheep grow wild and wool-blind
one day we’ll look back
and the mountains will be unrecognisable
a fern grown in 1830
pressed between the pages of a notebook
when we count the seconds we do it in rivers
one-Mississippi
two-Mississippi
is it cold in the water
could you hear the comet before you saw it
would we notice if the continent
was drifting away from us
a new outline taking shape while we dive
skin patterned with seal-light
a volcano pushing itself into the present moment
like a crescendo of keys jammed in a lock
in the museum it is air conditioned
and impossible to say what time it is
you are taking me by the hand
and leading me through the legs
of the biggest thing to have ever lived
when we step outside
the sky has doubled in size
The Crossing
Nocturne with Stranger
In the hot pink night I am a runaway bride hitching
up many skirts to knock on your door
The sky is only bats no stars
and the compasses have all been polarised
What was it that you saw
in me— did something I said make a path clear for you
Did my face remind you of another face
One that you know the topography of like a hometown backroad
The river is out there somewhere pulling
silt into the current
See two foxes cross the train tracks
Did they meet here by chance or was it pre-ordained
You, debonair in relief
Taking me in, weight on one elbow
Did the foxes speak to one another
Did one tell the other that they were beautiful and mean it
How rapid the light gets away
A hand clasps an ankle something is bitten
Something howls and shivers sideways
and is touched softly and again
No noise from the still house around us
Every tree is one I have never seen before
Loretta Riach is a Pākehā writer and artist from Aotearoa, living in Naarm. Much of their work is concerned with landscape, solidarity, and ghosts, but they also like to write love poems. This writing can be found in previous issues of Starling, as well as publications including Sweet Mammalian, The Spinoff, Min-a-rets, Ōrongohau | Best New Zealand Poems, and Poetry Aotearoa Yearbook. They love geology, swimming in rivers, and telling stories.