Photo (CC) steve p2008 @ Flickr
*
to qualify as a search diver
she releases her hair
plants candles in the sea
grows fins of broom
and toi-toi imagines
her husband on a shore-line
somewhere say bay head beach
his thin face shaved
by small tongues of spume
imagines him the complete
angler with the anatomy
of a salmon imagines
how sirens of krill
tow his dinghy the mad hun
into a sound drowned valley
so the road home never darkens
.
*
.
to see Venice you only need a mask
even though Turner’s mask
was a thin wash of lilac rain
the artist always longed
to set fire to Venice
at first he dragged
undiluted paint across paper
then scratched out
any impression of water
his father known
for his spare ribs
remembers the smoke of stars
strokes of people
luminous hollow hair
refugees of Venetian history
doctors who didn’t quack
doges horologists glassblowers
became flames of tonal lilac
there was no need
to add body colour
Venice was an inferno
and what his painting forgave
from this fusion of embers
remained behind
the confessional grille
with the lilac Priest
.
*
.
photos of Raymond
though there are photos
of Raymond’s academic
surgery and lab gowns
he still shouted doctor
when he discovered
his son in the pool
though Raymond gave us a fridge
an unknown illness
still swallowed his wife
there are photos of Raymond
at the cemetery
with 100 blue moon roses
the morning my mother
couldn’t wake Raymond
I dreamt there were photos
of all his pills
on polka-dot saucers
whenever I think
of Raymond’s photos
there’s always a blackbird
I call the doctor
at my window
.
*
ABOUT THE POET
KERRIN P. SHARPE’s first book, three days in a wishing well, was published by Victoria University Press in 2012. A group of her poems also appeared in Oxford Poets 13 (Carcanet). A second book, there’s a medical name for this, was published by Victoria University Press in 2014. At present, she is completing her third collection, rabbit rabbit, with the assistance of a Creative New Zealand grant. Kerrin lived for many years in Wellington, New Zealand, where she completed the Victoria University course (IML) in creative writing. She now lives in Christchurch and, as well as writing herself, teaches creative writing. Her students have had many writing successes and she is very proud of them all.
Contrappasso Magazine: International Writing 
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