JO THORPE

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LITTLE KNOT

‘Grandeur and choice are with us every minute’,
a modern Saul wrote in his chapter on ethics.
It takes a while to settle with the dailiness of grandeur.
A woman in her thirties walks out toward the bay.
Four grey campervans parked on the shore
are corralled against the likelihood of wind.
She has no idea of the lives she is not living.
A tattooed man emerging from the ruined abattoir –
orange brick, blue graffiti – tells her he ‘sleeps
on the killing floors with his wife Marlene
they have a new machine for making cappuccino’.
As if the words in his mouth bore equal weight.
There are places of violence. Acts of violence.
Small babe tumbled in steel clothes dryer.
Little knot of gasps now still.
At Pak’nSave the woman greets a volunteer
for Plunket. Today he’s raffling Easter treats.
It’s cold. He has driven from his comfortable home
with a newly filled, green hot-water bottle.
From a coddle of strangers he invites the giving.
Warms his moderate hands.