A wide mouth, a wider smile, a coiffure
that could carpet an island. He’s a
double-breasted miracle to the silver set,
a reminder of days when they ruled the roost.
He’s a tip of the brim to the rogues’ gallery,
public scourge and private player of markets.

See him come, a rolling maul
of social media and cameras, a presser, a standup,
an ikea of nostalgia, bullshit, and platitudes. The truth:
we know we’re being conned and we love it anyway.
He’s so like us, he’s so the bloke who’ll stand a round
in the lounge bar after the game.

Watch him once he waves the cameras away,
darkened hotel window separating him from the city.
He practises gestures to his partial reflection, lifts a hand
then lets it fall: the chop, the end, the verdict.
He steps onto the balcony, channeling Mussolini,
dreaming the rise of a million jutting arms below.

1: Detectable only by instruments

Four deep breaths and a cough to order.
Richter is a faint arrhythmia, a doctor’s
musing on the wisdom of an ECG.

Richter dresses when directed, then
strides his heavy stride to work, an
undodged bullet lodged deep in his chest.

2: Barely detectable, even near the epicentre

Richter no longer finds pleasure in his desk,
its woodgrain finish, this ergonomic
wonder of the ancient world.

He desires a standing desk, 
a treadmill. His fingers tap frustration
against his faithful keyboard’s bevelled edge.

3: Felt indoors

“I have abandonment issues,”
says Richter. “My father, you know …”
Tears magnify his eyes.

The therapist nods. On her pad,
his chair becomes a flower, Richter’s face
abashed amid the petals.

4: Felt by all; slight damage

In the ornamental garden, Richter
is diminished. The herbaceous border’s neatness
mocks his bulky frame.

He finds a remnant stand of native bush
and feels at ease. His booming laugh
bounces kārearea, kākāriki, off the trees.

5: Felt by all; damage minor to moderate

On any away day, Richter
is the open-handed host. His generosity
makes him the life, the heart, the soul.

However the day ends, Richter loses.
Sleep flees from his lonely motel bed
at the sound of other people having sex.

6: Moderately destructive

Saturday morning with headphones and grubber,
Richter smashes hyacinth and onion weed.
He knows the dream property

can only be built on sap and blood. His music
yowls to a temporary pause. Surveying his work,
he nods approval at the wet and wretched earth.

7: Major damage

Richter’s faithful-husband phase
lasts north of twenty years. It ends
in a younger colleague and an unlocked phone.

He takes the divorce and names it freedom,
stalks Tinder to replicate his brief success
till time swipes Richter left and left and left.

8: Total damage

Richter’s heart gives out
between sofa and table, between whisky sour
and solitary dinner.

He lies on the carpet and watches it turn grey.
Tiny tremors, created by his fall,
are undetectable before they fade away.

Kettled. Sun
bursts the helicopter haze,
picks details from doorways:
flak jacket, hunk of hair.
We push, are pushed. Fear
sweats off in stale adrenalin.
Mirrored in visors, twin desires:
blood, oblivion. Shots burst
from the windows of an upper room.

She fell away from the war,
from building Rolls Royce engines,

from the bank and its simultaneous
wedding basket and farewell.

From the shower head and the shower walls
she fell away.

She fell away from the atrium,
from the ventricles, from blood and breath and pulse.

She fell away from the post-war migration,
from miles never re-crossed

for fear she could not make herself return.
From streets as wide as years, she fell away.

She fell away from her daughter and her son.
From rotary phones and Rogernomics,

from Princess Diana and the Berlin Wall,
from crumbling certainties, she fell away.

She fell away from the ceiling,
from the yellow, unflattering light,

from the hospital that held her last two weeks.
From doctors and from nurses, she fell away.

From the casket and her husband,
from a house as cold as comfort,

from the mumbling of the preacher,
from the shuffling of her mourners,

she fell away to ash and memory.
Through the ragged net of words,

down the telescope of years,
she fell away.