pito whenua: blood test

on the operating table, the radio is outpouring pure silver, static blood.
and she asked me what it felt like.
i said, ‘it feels like a cold blunt object pushing down underneath my skin’.
do you see the money that colonises our blood?
when she lets the vein my haematids jingle like coins.

my body is a fat wallet
with a picture of your face in it. o desire
makes me tiresome. i’m anaemic which is to say
i’m broke which is to say fuck you
pay me which is to say please

call me which is to say please
don’t call me that word again
even as a joke
especially as a joke. didn't i tell you
a word is already an action? it happens

and it makes things happen.
whisper me sweet somethings
to test what brutality your tongue can do to me.
guess how many blood cells are in the jar
and win me

a bright red octopus plushie with two yellow and black glass eyes
to hold tightly when she comes back around
with the bags of you
and a congratulations for sitting still.
it’s time to write a poem

i paint my nails ‘tickle me france-y’
i read about the war on the poor in this country
i make coffee
i worry about how to pay bills
it’s time to write a poem

i make pancakes while
C. works, it’s sunday,
it’s time to write a poem
i go for a walk in this country
i worry about people

i see a pony in a field with a silver coat,
scary and luminous, i go the fence-line,
and the pony meets me there.
here is time written, recorded

face up close

to the snort of breath fenced-in
by clipboards and checkboxes
counting their way across a whenua
reckoned by numbers piled
up, coralled.

​

i worry.
pōturi ana, this incremental tally.

By Jessica Lim, Rebecca Hawkes, Claudia Jardine, Nikki-Lee Birdsey, & Anahera Gildea:

Jessica Lim

Jessica Lim is a poet, zine maker, and prison abolitionist currently studying a Masters in Sociology at the University of Auckland.

Rebecca Hawkes

Rebecca Hawkes is a Cantabrian writer and artist now nesting in Wellington. She has words splattered across various journals like Starling, Sport, and Mimicry, and is publishing her first substantial coagulation of poems this August in AUP New Poets 5. You can find more of her work through rebeccahawkesart.com and instagram.com/gorse_bloom

​
Claudia Jardine

Claudia Jardine (she/her) is a poet, musician and postgraduate student at VUW. Her work has been published in Starling, Mimicry, perverse, Salty, and at The Spinoff. Jardine is currently researching Byzantine historiography and managing the independent release of her first collection of songs, the North EP (released 3/5/19). 

Nikki-Lee Birdsey

Nikki-Lee Birdsey was born in Piha. She holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a BA from New York University. Her work has been published in Aotearoa, the U.K., and the U.S., where she was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her first book, Night As Day, was published by Victoria University Press in April 2019.

Anahera Gildea

Anahera Gildea (Ngāti Tukorehe) is an essayist, poet, and short story writer.  Her work has appeared in multiple journals and anthologies, and her first poetry book was published by Seraph Press in 2016.  She is currently undertaking doctoral research focusing on Māori literature at Victoria University of Wellington.