Kieran Haslett-Moore
Left
I still sleep on the left side.
Left depends on which way I face,
missionary left or left to be ridden.
Spooning wipes the compass,
then misaligned.
The lefts ended up in opposition.
This trained ingrained pattern is all there is left.
An indentation on the mattress shows which left.
I flip it turning the world upside down.
But I am here, still left, on the left,
picturing your face, remembering your scent,
reliving the times before you left,
and writing ‘I’, almost as much, as ‘left’.
The Sun
For Ra
Up on Brougham, in the early hours.
We were drunk on life,
and vodka,
in that catholic house with too many bedrooms
and alcoves for Mary,
you toyed with a dude,
‘see if this one makes me cum’
he talked a strong game,
I hope he did,
I fear he didn’t.
I said ‘you don’t have to’.
Mr Morals,
in the house of Mary.
You laughed.
I wee’d in the drainpipe,
pissing down my love,
the queue for the bathroom proved too much.
We laughed.
The world at our feet.
So many bedrooms.
We could have gone anywhere,
you did.
I can.
Drinking till we saw the sun.
I thought of this night at your funeral.
After that final bedroom.
Tales too distasteful for grieving parents,
sparks still smouldering in your wake,
sparks still ricocheting around my mind,
tales full of life.
You lived a life.
A sacred tale of the sun.
Kieran Haslett-Moore is a poet, writer and brewer who hails from South Wellington, New Zealand, descended from migrants from the South and West Country of England, he lives in Waikanae on the Kāpiti Coast with a terrier named Ruby.
