Courtney Sina Meredith

Pony
New Lynn
Actually, a whole traveling farm, a portable farm with rats and bunnies, chickens too? It was my sister’s birthday.
 

Baths
Unless my memory is playing tricks on me. The rats were white with blazing red eyes.
 

I’m translating myself from a time when I was sure.
 

          Sex with strangers
The man leading the pony in circles was wearing a cowboy hat.
 

Sunday School

There was a big pink cake with purple icing and sprinkles.
 

Of being outside
I was too big to ride the pony. By then I was a young woman.
 

Conflicts with a certain city

The smaller children took turns riding the pony around the backyard. There was a creek beyond the section.
 

I see flashes of our father
up to his knees in dirty water.
 

Lost love
My sister’s name written in M&Ms.
 

And he is smoking fish and you will be left behind.

 

 

Smoke
home all day          you sit at the edge of the living room
on your best behaviour     man     cat     fire     two winds appear
          who will win          your body asks
sinking deeper          into carpet
                                        but time but cars                    pass
          the contract          eats itself          and I stay in my skin
 

your body is wet when you’re sad
          I lie at the centre                    a pool of oil
If I answer this call          will the smoke rise?
                                        are the ancestors
          always watching?
 

this is my          other
                              the quiet half          eaten alive

 

 

By Courtney Sina Meredith

is the author of Brown Girls in Bright Red Lipstick & Tail of the Taniwha (both Beatnik Publishing). She has held various international writing residencies including the prestigious Fall Residency at the University of Iowa. She describes her work as an ongoing discussion of contemporary urban life with an underlying Pacific politique.