Sonja Yelich
Accident Compensation Corp.
The rain has been coming for a while.
Winter is of martini leaking over our
Small house in its stucco shell.
My father has taken up a knife
in the shed. The bicycle hangs from
a rafter. I was always fond of the oil
floor and the carpet he had put
out beneath the car to poke its motor.
The raw picking of the Yale lock.
One set of fingers could not
cut off the other and out of the window
a mountain in our suburb stared back at him.
I don’t think you will be able to whack those digits
off for any amount of dollars. We could
hear his avowals and the traipsing in there.
The lollapalooza of his fingers sighing.
The relief they must have had & my father
in his hobnails, disobedient metacarpals.
Sonja Yelich lives in Auckland. She writes: “Before it got demolished — the garage had a pale green door that I loved the water-colour of — never seen that green again. I remain attracted to the smell of the interior of a workshop/garage. It’s the oil.”