Hohner

That night you mutter,
Someone's poked
a hole in its bellows.

A parent's nightmare
about fear of loss and harm.
At seventy-one, she's no baby,

but relatives and friends cradle
her gently, trying to imagine
where she's been,

who made her, who's played her,
how she came to New Zealand.
In the original box,

with an oxidised lock,
there appears to be a lot
of death and history.

A lot of skill and love
and death and history.
The child-sized German

accordion is sapphire blue
and has thin leather straps
to hold on your shoulders.

page 152

It lends itself to Deutschland
Über Alles, Heart of Glass,
the Jewish Wedding March.

Oompah oompah oompah.
I can't play at all well.
You look so miserable,

you say as I keep squeezing
sad noises out
her ornate metal vent.

page 153

Pet

Bloody Equus
eye rolling
away from me,
down to the too fat
bay belly, dusty on
the underside, heaving
like a heart beating,
with laminitis—
not enough riding
to keep those legs
strong.

He'll never get up again
so you stick the needle in
his tense neck
and stop the flies
irritating his bloody eyes.
You dig a hole in the back
paddock and plant
an ash tree
for the pet
pony.

I remember it as a gunshot
rather than a shot
of barbiturate,
straight through the star
on his forehead;
not two doses
to stop the body
shuddering,
but one bullet
between
the bloody eyes.