after Talia Marshall

boiled wine
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apoplectic at the ghost
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insisting I leave the blue carcass where it lies
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kōkako harbinger
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otherworldly churn
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everyone in the ceremony
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is fictional the speech is
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about wistfulness
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did you mean: clinical depression
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I think about fridge magnets in the shape of jandals
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the HMS Endeavour as your waka
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we drove to the middle of town believing things
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when we got there we bent apart
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our names pass through time
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my grandmother's grandmother
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hangs over the maunga
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I fell hexagonally
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circles around my eyes
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we're on the road again
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mimicking missionaries
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we play the game
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are they Māori or are they
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just wearing a pounamu
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we use tongues with the
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softness of birds
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my girl
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I find sentiments haunting
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I pluck each feather
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until I am myself extinct
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we say a karakia
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we listen into the sea
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low-key tangata whenua
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all good
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circles once taut
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used to enclose and keep safe
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break and unspool
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finish in the centre
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