I wrote a letter to my dead brother and read it out
to his lost spirit over a hole freshly dug for the
seven-year-old oak tree I’d bought for him, for me
it took three men to drag the tree off the truck
and prop in the earth—a root skirt preparing to take hold.

I waited until they left before I read aloud my handwritten pages
hands shaking and tongue dry despite my audience
two infant daughters—your nieces—and the family dog
I can’t remember much of what I wrote now except apologising
for giving you undies for Christmas for the previous three years
they were boxed sets—Calvin Kleins fixed fly front
but they were still undies underpants pants
you were as celebrity twenty-seven as Kurt Cobain and
Jeff Buckley whose tortured Hallelujah we played at your funeral
they offered some sort of cool but also not
a young man’s life cut short
is a young man’s life cut short
the tree is now twenty-four years in the ground and counting
well rooted
majestic
the opposite of evergreen
a perfect origami of memories never entered
each year witness to absence
each year a cycle of
Spring new
Summer green
Autumn red
Winter fall
filigree leaves
bone branches
leaf carpet
on and on
without your footsteps
only those of the young cop walking down the drive
Mum still dreams on repeat.

I’m a cat lover so it may come as no surprise that in a past life
I have joyfully uttered the words—

	I’d like to be reincarnated as a cat.

The first time, I was fourteen, out from boarding school
for the day with a friend visiting her brother in his single
bed, single desk room at Massey Uni, Palmy North.

Why, he hissed, aren’t you happy with the pussy you’ve got?
Grey fur walls fell in on my quiet-girl innocence. My secret
feline desires. The cat got your tongue? Ha ha ha . . .

In my twenties I wrote bad poems about that sting;
nowadays, I cuddle my kitty, Cowboy, while watching cat reels
on IG of other cats and cat lovers. This brought me to the
conclusion—a lot of people want to come back as cats.

I might do too when I’m tired and all I feel like doing is laying
about in the sun stretched luxuriously on a velvet coverlet
or hidden from the world in a hut made of sheepskin cushions
and throws, assured a variety of textured foods will appear if I meow.

Until the other day when Cowboy came in from a rainstorm
and began the task of drying his thick fur coat lick by lick,
and I realised there is no way in hell
I could towel myself down post shower

	with my tongue.

My dad loathed red nail polish, thought it slutty
claimed only women of ill repute wore it
odd because his nickname for me was Bimbo
Bimbo Bimbo pretty little Bimbo
a maritime ditty about some hooker in some port
story goes, sung in a gravelly alto Johnny Cash
would’ve thought wholesome, he pushed me on the swings
at Narrow Beck Beach my blonde hair flying, my toes
curling, squealing more Daddy higher Daddy
a man of habit he’d take off his gold signet ring beforehand
prop it on the V-dub’s windscreen wiper blade
only one time he forgot to retrieve it
the oval gold with the family insignia, an arm in armour
clutching three barbed arrows, became fodder for the
red legged gulls to pick at in the sandy drains by the ice cream kiosk
picking pecking until it lost its sheen and turned into a golden
fried potato mine mine my chip, gone

Bimbo Bimbo pretty little Bimbo
he hummed wordlessly back home
his left pinky keeping a sad empty
beat on the steering wheel

To be fair I just turned up at my father’s wake
but I’m still bitter about the sandwiches served

Tombstones of margarined white bread
champagne ham shaved with square cheese
lettuce of crisp icebergs mayonnaised

But the women who delivered and released
their cling film shrouds had wide sympathetic smiles
this wasn’t their first bone rodeo

So as the empty afternoon dragged on, I directed
my regrets in one big dainty club sandwich at his not-wife
causing platters of blond crusts to curl in the heat
and tomato pips swim away in search of peat

No mourning champagne was served