
Crib
after Christmas
I re-wrap separately
depending on their rank
angels humans and beasts
Jesus and his
earthly parents
are first to be accorded
tissue paper privacy
the King who comes
bearing gold has lost his crown
after years of journeying
and annual storage
ox and donkey
fit together
knee to knee
in a corner of the box
lastly a sheep
that seems
to have strayed into the mix
from a childhood farm set
Close quarters
in summer
the boards under the house
are dry
and reverberate
when trodden on
birds treat
the veranda as theirs
hopping and pecking
at leavings
under the outdoor table
we wait
all year for this
bearing the winter
like a bye-child
spring like fresh news
then the heat
on the planet
that never quite suits us
our ancestors
left for us to resolve
January break
the barber from India
spends his days
razoring the edges of beards
of large men
in the provincial centre
this is the first I’ve heard
about the subcontinental diet
and its spices
affording staunch
resistance to coronavirus
from the park across the street
the fountain sings
and gulls disagree
concerning entitlement
to takeaway scraps
nearly everything in town
commemorates somebody
even the ambulances
parked regularly at lunchtime
outside hot bread shops
single rooms to rent
up a staircase
no longer there
off the laneway between
two main thoroughfares
the man in the bookshop
advises me
to hang on to change
for the meter
though I’m on foot
in the heat
the council-commissioned murals
slide down buildings
to pool colourfully
on the ground
Emissary
mail comes late
and is sparse
requests for payment
real estate flyers
only the occasional
much creased
and redirected
envelope from the frontier
one containing
dead leaves
another crushed parts
of a praying mantis
the kind of messages
composed in the
kind of script
a ghost might send
Tony Beyer’s print titles include Anchor Stone, a finalist in the poetry category of the 2018 New Zealand Book Awards, and Friday Prayers (2019), both from Cold Hub Press. Recent poems have appeared in Hamilton Stone Review, Molly Bloom, Mudlark, Otoliths and elsewhere.