Histology Report  

(near Routeburn Station, Glenorchy)

Tall, thin thistles and lupins

lined the roadside like blown glass rods

filled with droplets bright as syrup.

Cars trailed clouds of white dust.

The sun rubbed its cat-barb tongue

in small sharp kisses on cream-skipped skin.

We trudged beneath serrated frowns

of watchful mountains;

despite those imperious brows

the boys were stuck in cul de sacs of squabbles

or jokes where the punch line was always smut

as if every morning they’re caught unawares

by their own forked forms’ dawn crow,

have to spend the rest of the day

in a triple double-take —

Hey, hey, I’ve got a body!

amazed at how it always springs

to the north of warmth

like a huntaway that noses the wind.

I’m slowing down now, bored by the bawdy,

my own body conceals confusions,

chains of scrambled instructions,

the space that cupped my children

lined with cells bewildered, off-kilter, proliferate.

Funny-not funny, how the histology reminds me

of my shyest, quietest, kindest great-aunt

who gave me a golden, wind-up watch

almost the moment clockwork was obsolete,

and who couldn’t stop cooking for hordes

even when there was no cause or occasion;

still she would labour and bake

bring us scones, gems and cakes

the way an overlooked child gifts, gifts again

pictures of the same scene, in pencil, crayons, paints:

this is us, this is you, that’s the sun,

here are the horses, the sheep, the lupins,

and we are walking, walking together,

see, see our smiles inside the clouds of dust,

our hot, tight skins under the lemon sun

that drips like sticky juice on us

Though I know it all meant love,

how you can’t stop it, quite,

once you’ve got the habit of it

sometimes even if you want to

sometimes even when you know

it can never be fully requited:

the world can never love you back enough

to hold you all, on the summer-stung track,

in the hours before the unknown turns known.

Emma Neale works as a freelance editor, and is based in Ōtepoti/Dunedin. She has had 6 novels and 6 collections of poetry published, and most recently, a book of short fiction: The Pink Jumpsuit (Quentin Wilson, 2021), which was  longlisted in the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. Her novel, Fosterling, is undergoing script development with Sandy Lane Productions, under the title Skin. In 2020 she received the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for a Distinguished Contribution to New Zealand Poetry.