Poem – Jessica Le Bas

driving back from Takaka

she says
I will have to get
a tricky one this time
cause you are a smarty-pants
she looks out the window
g for grass
h for hills
t for trees
r for river

I will ask my magic finger to find a
tricky word just for you
she flexes her index finger
(right and left, they are both magic)
in the golden air
she points to the high hills
I have it!

eye spy with my foxy eye something beginning with … C
clouds – no
cows – no
clockcokecakechurch
no – no – no – no
castle
there’s no castle! NO! give up?
NO!

carcornercaravancrocodile
NO, silly, there’s no crocodiles here
give up?
yeah

ha ha … clauDESTRA!
what’s that? You can’t just invent things!
my magic finger found it
that’s cheating – there’s no such thing as clau-dest-ra
yes there is
no there’s not
you don’t know everything you know

Jessica Le Bas

Tagged with: , ,
Posted in Poem
Search the archive

More results...

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Filter by Categories
Architecture
Art
Autobiography
Awards
Biography
Byline
Children
Comment
Contents
ebooks
Economics
Editorial
Education
Essays
Extract
Fiction
Gender
Graphic novel
Health
History
Imprints
Language
Lecture
Letters
Letters
Literature
Māori
Media
Memoir
Music
Natural History
Non-fiction
Obituaries
Opinion
Pacific
Photography
Plays
Poem
Poetry
Politics & Law
Psychology
Religion
Review
Science
Short stories
Sociology
Sport
War
YA Reviewers
Young adults
Recent issues: subscriber-only access

    Subscribe to NZ Books to access the issues above

    Search by category

    See more