The Friday Poem: Spent by Sugar Magnolia Wilson
Sugar Magnolia Wilson. Image by Caitlin Mahon
New work by Fern Flat poet Sugar Magnolia Wilson.
Spent
The night sky is full of
stars but
we are more clever than
most – we know
they are just
burned bones.
Nothing beautiful –
not space sailors blown
from their ships – the light from
treasure quickly grasped
in their fists
only reaching us now.
It’s a useless kind of light –
unspendable.
The palm of your hand lies
on my knee
like a gold coin
donation
trying to free up my joints
but I don’t feel like
moving
or shining.
And your voice has had
its heartwood cut out
a woodpecker taps a hollow
sound against
the bark casing where
other things dwell
now – rats and
stoats, wide-mouthed
egg-swallowers too.
In the dark your face
is different – you have more
teeth than normal and
your mouth
looks expensive.
Sugar Magnolia Wilson, 2019
Spinoff poetry editor Ashleigh Young welcomes submissions for The Friday Poem at thefridaypoem@gmail.com
Sugar Magnolia Wilson
Sugar Magnolia Wilson was born in 1981. She is from a valley called Fern Flat in the Far North of New Zealand. She completed her MA in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington in 2012. Her work has been published in various literary journals, including Turbine, Shenandoah, Cordite, Food Court, Landfall and Sport. In 2014 she co-founded the journal Sweet Mammalian with Hannah Mettner and Morgan Bach. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Because a Woman’s Heart is Like a Needle at the Bottom of the Ocean, is out with Auckland University Press on 13 March 2019.
