Drawing Grasses in Okains Bay, New Zealand

by Marisa Cappetta

I draw grasses to demonstrate the existence of wind and send it to England.

In my artist’s satchel hinges of you old but alive creak and
you chink against fat graphite crayons and charcoal.

Your voice rumbles along the string of my kite
spread helpless against the sky like my hand on this table,
the thrum and gleam strokes my shoulder further proof of the wind.

I swim and disperse and break with the droplets
flung into the air from my cupped hands and lay afterwards
chewing a sweet dry stalk. Grass heads flick our conversation
more like parents than lovers, sandy with regret.

I draw two ladders in the sand, you climb one of them untangling
my kite from cross winds and a magpie’s curious attack.

I draw round cave mouths too. They sing of you gathering
English grasses for a scent of sun during winter’s deep keening.

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