1 

And were they three sailing on a ferry, staring towards Mt. Maunganui? One in thought, one listening to Ommadawn, the
walkman patched with sellotape. I am on the boat. 

 2 

Or under a desk: I am Peter Porter, or James K. Baxter. The pages blotted in brown cells. Myself, beginning to write. 

3

A crowd moves about the boat. We’re keeping ourselves apart, theorising about the others. One gets us on film. From Mt.
Maunganui, the boat advances in a succession of frames. 

4

The photograph mythologises us. Are we three floating animals with simian wrists? We want to visit a café like people watching
stars before we knew what they were. 

5

I was reading about form and metre. The Spenserian Stanza and Pound’s musical phrase. Crucial events in the continents
beyond me. Trying to justify writing’s import. 

6

At the other side of the café, three artists, in enthusiastic discussion, with mammal hair. She adjusts her hair. Others in the café
are pairing up. 

7

I seemed to be alone, walking home from the café. Then the houses dissolved, revealing the enormity of their inhabitants. This
house is empty. I walk up the stairs and let myself in. 

8

Forcing the door, pulling the wicker basket through. My slippers catch on the stones. A cat sails towards me like a ferryboat. 

9

The coloured pegs fascinate me. I make correspondences with the items I hang: green pegs for a green shirt, blue for old jeans.
A faded pink suffices for a burgundy - edged handkerchief. 

10

I decide not to write today. I put on some music and prepare an easy meal. Unseen, the washing twists up in the wind. 

11

In the café they’re discussing poetry. Perhaps they’re irrelevant, perhaps their readers mistake them for ordinary people. That,
it seems, is their intent. I am on the boat. 

12

The Kestrel on a Friday night, like it’s last Friday night with no week between. The old-time jazz band back with standards and
the navy boys are drunk again. I’m sitting by myself with an edition of Pound in my pocket. 

13

The couple across from me drinking beer from green cans and me their antithesis. Or would be. 

14

We will meet, in the city, the three of us. We will go to a favourite café. It will last all day. 

15

The ferry might not reach the city. I wander up to the top deck and look towards Devonport. From Mt. Victoria, the ship is
still. 

16

In my room I have seven drafts of the same Peter Porter poem on my wall. Each page I have stained brown. On the desk,
drafts of my own work. I will be as prolific as James K. 

17

The three of us have turned up and have had a bit to drink. Are we now twelve, in total? Was I playing on my keyboard in a
loud shirt and a Panama hat? Everyone’s chatting, or someone’s playing with the volume control. They’ve replaced my CD
with one of their own. 

18

We took a Thursday walk to One Tree Hill, the Epsom back streets perfect lines of trees. Then, from the windows of each
house, two people were walking somewhere. 

19

In a corner of the café, there was a photo of a spinning clothesline in Oratia: the lone tree of Maungakiekie. 

20

At dusk, on Victoria St, at a bus stop. In an artwork before me some metal squares had slipped down their metal shafts.
Commuters beside me going home to sleep. 

21

I was trying to decide why I was writing. Love of language. Artistic aspiration. The clever idea. To be read by a saxophonist
and a wearied homemaker. The businessman next to me checks his watch. 

22

To passers-by the ensemble at the bus stop dim in the half light. I don’t stick out. 

23

Three years ago he told me that he idealised ignorance. He couldn’t justify artistic pose. Better to share the expenses. Power’s
due next week, better see to that. Better make the bed. 

24

At night on the bus home. This blue cloth and rain, persistent as glass. The beard man shifts and dreams of drink in jars. 

25

His dad left pretty suddenly. Now the three of us are watching the other nine we’ve brought together with a sense of
satisfaction.