Poem 15

I like the way we’re taken inside someone’s thoughtscape without noticing … how it’s only at the end we really understand the wave-like rise and fall of hope – and the sense of aridity in this woman’s life …

… I never have been able to see the attraction of Taupō …

The Fisherman’s Wife

The fisherman is late coming home
perhaps drowned on the lake
or met someone or drifted and been surprised
      by the way the night suddenly
      bends into the water
his wife stands for a moment by the driveway
the whiteness of hydrangeas and her face floating
in darkness
                     she looks up the road
    waits while headlights flick past
    walks inside where the dinner
    grows old in the pots

at 10 o'clock she will ring the police
tomorrow she will insist he is buried
here by the lake he loved for holidays
           and then enough
            to retire to
she can go back to Wellington
get rid of this place
she hates
find something small
by her daughter …

she hears his car pull into the driveway