Lilly Kelleher
A Funeral in Pāuatahanui
i.
One simmering twilight,
Lola coaxed a tiny cat
into the barn house’s hot metal belly.
It was sooty black and all legs,
with round amber eyes like molten glass.
She hid it behind a dusty old couch for weeks,
feeding it off-cuts of cold chicken and kisses.
She dared to show us one day, grinning,
tried herding it into my lap,
but the little thing wouldn’t trust a new hand,
and so we spent all evening
bashing through the creamy toetoe plumes,
meowing up and down the river.
ii.
It was ice cold year-round, that river,
thrown into an evergreen shade
by staunch kahikatea.
We hefted boulders in one stagnant summer,
learnt to creep across like cats.
Baby slipped in his bald converse,
sliced his palm clean open.
He ran home wailing,
injured hand curled into his belly,
cradled like a dying bird.
We flew up the hill after him,
exhilarated, yelling out.
Dad worked too hard,
an ammonite fossil
sunk in the stony face of the couch.
We slipped into the kitchen wordlessly
to rinse out the poor hand in the sink.
We learnt a lot that summer:
How to carve a knife from a good stick,
How to make damper bread and dip it in sugar,
How to hurdle an electric fence,
How to palpate rubbish bags for glass,
How to put each other to bed.
iii.
We performed many rituals in those fields.
The day the Xbox died,
we gave it a water burial,
released it from the bridge
into the frothing maw below.
Tiger dredged the grave site
months later, fished out
its rotten, rusted-out corpse
for us to examine,
crouched on the bank.
Remember the day Puppy killed
one of the chickens.
While Dad researched plucking methods
we took turns touching her cooling body,
solemnly delegating responsibilities:
the boys pierced baked soil
while we smoothed ruffled feathers,
arranged pink daisies and Queen Anne’s lace
around her poor broken neck.
We learnt a lot that summer:
How to mount a horse alone,
How to shoot a gun,
How to touch something small and alive,
How to hold each other.
Lilly Kelleher was born and raised in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and is currently studying English Literature and Creative Writing at Te Herenga Waka. She likes to write poetry and short fiction about strange landscapes, distant memories and shiny objects.