New verse by Wellington poet Claudia Jardine, who previously thrilled and disturbed Spinoff readers with her poem ‘My Iron Cervix.’

Ode to Goon

So there’s me, sprawled across the bed

eating bits of biscuit like Bacchus,

and you, half out of a suit,

looking at me as if I’m street-art

you scraped off a wall on the way home.

Wine-red dress spilt on the floor,

so drunk we pulled the mattress from the bed

and crushed a packet of biscuits.

And while you pondered how it was

that I had come so violently to life

at four in the morning, I asked for a story,

so you told me about your pet rabbit from your childhood

who ate so much she made herself sick.