october 2016
Grave - Rachael Elliott
how far did you dig?
how many colours
did the dirt turn
until it finally went
yellow?
how hard did you tamp
tap
pat
and where is the whine
of the bullet that ended it?
where is the roar
of rain
on the hood of your blue coat
motherfucker?
underground melody
muffled, woundless
it ended up dead anyway
didn’t it?
finger
gullet
hollow
bone
it escaped through the hole you made
but now you won’t find it
see, pigskins rot
and even though you hid it
the red dog will
bring
it
back
learn:
old bones don’t stay buried
there’s a kind of music to them
dormant frets
plucked from the dirt
will thrum
in your picking fingers
soon
everything will sing
and everything will surface
piece
by piece
by piece
Hedge (after Plath’s Elm) - Rachael Elliott
My grandfather winks and loses an eye
No one notices.
It rolls between my legs into the gutter
He reaches from his coffin with wet paper hands
begs me to take his death picture
no smiling
he flaps around my ankles
as I
lean,
lean
lean
away
A sweater lies, panting
in my shadow
Coloured ladies flit to my shoulder
to dig their pincers in
pull my hair out
one strand at a time
to lacquer the ground
I stretch my fingers
stroke hot concrete
My limits burn, bleach yellow
You want me to keep them out
shriek when I keep them in
you cut me
down to a stump
and roots
A feathered whiteness shelters beneath me
They plant their futile children
in my softness
to rot
beneath their shells
for boys to fling
for cats crack
Inside me, an itch has made its home
It pecked itself
a splintered place to hide at night
I feel its fur turn
brush against me
the rhythmic thump
of its leg
scrabbling
keeps me awake
I feel it gnawing at its edges
scuttling beneath my skin
I bloom
the itch eats me
the whiteness steals my colour
joins the other painted ladies
draped in my hair
children pick me
lick their hands
reach between my legs
for my Grandfather’s eye
spit
shine
eat it whole
Accounting - Rachael Elliott
first the great unpicking
seams slit
with the smallest
curved blade you
own
thread pulled through
every pin hole
picture frame
until it makes a
hot cord sound
and now, a reading:
headline written in
the slash
of a night time cigarette
gospel
thou shalt now
push a lie
push a lie
push a lie, baby
don’t you cry
the answer is five:
insecure little toadlings to strip
the paint back
caustic nose aches
who
melt lead paint (green)
to find the wood
but never, ever polish it
it will never rain for
dried up husk children
unless couched in
vicious
laughter
soon, reflections:
my elbow is the corner of your eye
my head, blackened to fit the definition
of your constricted pupil
view
nothing flows here
we are weightless
in plain packaging
I will strip
your accounting of me
and leave it on the floor
to polish it
Contributor's Note
Rachael has an MA in creative writing from the University of Waikato. She was Editor of Nexus Magazine (which received three Aotearoa Student Press Association awards) and she won the 2degrees Poetry Slam in 2014. Her work has appeared in Poetry NZ, 4th Floor and JAAM.