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Eleanor Rose King Merton

Tan furnishings


It’s not too hot or too cool and the grapes are almost ready to eat
Typing with one hand left is wasting time:
An exercise in slow living from a magazine printed on matte paper

Maybe there is a chill in the air and the doors are threatening to slam
Birds flutter in machinery sounds
People are yelling on their decks

It is cloudy and deep in the sky
on the ground grass is trimmed with concrete and inside
among the tan furnishings: toast plates under a desk

Such a silent rain, to settle the dust in the wool
A lot of dog-walking goes on, and very eighties curls
drinking from too-heavy crystal, a crumb of bread
slowly going stale in the lungs


Eleanor Rose King Merton is an editor and poet living in Wellington. She has a BA in theatre and sociology, but no one knows where that fits in yet. Her work has previously appeared in Mimicry and Salient.