Hinemoana Baker
I asked a number of horses and hanged dictators of history
and some of the big-name gods and goddesses.
The dog who waited on that train platform,
a statue even then among the commuters.
When all I could find were fountains
I asked the thing with the tail and lifelike scales
glinting in the water’s fall and the small children
emptying that same water from pots and urns
and seashells and their own bladders
for centuries into the seasonal air.
I asked the woman at the top of the composition
who named the whole place
and the one whose dress is a lace of language
and the rugby team, the graveyard angels and
their loyal pigeons, silent lions.
I asked a gryphon, a huntaway, a bear,
the man squinting his open eye into his camera
and the other man who walked accidentally into shot.
The soldiers with quiet bayonets
pointing at their acres of paving.
