Living Beneath the Sky

Egmont towers, so white and hard in the endless sky Waiting like a broken clock Into december, still above me and frozen

Waves are white dragons, foam with this same ice A charge of tiny beasts, torn open by the wind And me, they break against my bare thighs current like electricity that surges through me Our winter pale skin is sliced numb Shoulders tightened, high, breasts lifted Gasping and resisting something of the water tempest inside Feet pushing against the outward pull of the tide

Hanging in water my form distorts Like the projection of pigment from above to this water There's a blue sky. But No. This is no blue sea. Here we know better Up close Reality bites In our eyes It swallows us, a tang in our throats And drips transparent of our chins And chops our bodies into blurs

In Taranaki we wade into shore Salt stinging on our faces and ankles as if we had risen from a seabed

I know the itch of numb feet on the hotness Half my blood thawed and rushing Throbbing around the stuff that's still in a frozen clot When I get cold my nervous system knows I still dive under Again And again

— Lily Stoddart, New Plymouth Girls' High School