Pito Whenua/Blood Test. Sweet Mammalian. Exquisite Corpse Edition. Wellington, New Zealand. July 2019.
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
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.
pōturi ana, this incremental tally.
By Jessica Lim, Rebecca Hawkes, Claudia Jardine, Nikki-Lee Birdsey, & Anahera Gildea.