Rent

for a daughter caught in the Christchurch quake, 2011

The pigeon stops
holds
stares
direct at you

You step out of your 
laughing looseness
girls together free of school

Step out with this bird
out of time
a flash of now

Above the street shadows
Midday
It is blue
bright

The bird lifts up 
an urgency of flight
that enters you

And then the roar.

The earth somewhere deep below
is sounding.

Watch out girl
that I rubbed 
shiny with oil
on your baby mat

Look up
Look behind you

Chicken licken
See the sky fall in

Dodge them girl
blocks
rocks
roofing iron
exploding shop fronts

Run girl 
plaits out back
Right smack 
into that business suit
his blood
floods your hair

A Christening of sorts
a ritual of admission

to convulsion
earth and mind

*

Seek that bird out 
girl
The one that briefed you

Find clean air
New breath
And water

Wash
Cleanse

10 years of rent

Marie McGuigan swapped her life of teaching for learning at Hagley Writers’ Institute 2013 with tutor Kerrin P Sharpe. The Margaret Mahy Award affirmed her writing as something necessary to pursue.