Will you tell me another story

about Geraldine,

with childhood houses

that grew wild with silverbeet

with backyards and long grass.

Will you tell me about the cinema

or the daisies

or the way you crept

through bamboo groves

to pick lemons from the tree,

and the way your sister would laugh

at the leaves stuck to your hair.

Let me see beyond the dust

on the windows,

and the concrete

that now covers the lawn.

Is that where you learnt to cartwheel?

I walked the streets of Geraldine

after the Anglican honey maker

starting pushing daisies from the earth,

after the pancreatic cancer ceased

to be the source of prayers,

after the candles became a pool of wax,

after the silence of the church bells.

Who shall tell the bees

that their keeper is dead?

Geraldine, you drove me to the edge of town

to show me the first the roundabout,

the first stop sign,

after the gravel become tarmac

and was painted with little white lines,

you drove me to where the wind carried

the seeds

of Himalayan lilies.

This is what it means to share a road,

one of us wants progress

and the other wants to grow old

with the memory of potholes.

Geraldine, who will pour the wine at the local?

After the children grow up and dream of Wellington.

Who will come back for the holidays?

While the birds still flock to the powerlines.

While the water still flows in the river, Waihi.

Will you tell me another story

about being a child of Canterbury

before the forests became estates

before the cheese makers became millionaires.

Will you tell me about the girl

that danced

with sequins sewn to her jacket?

What were you like before you were swept

up in the winds of the city?

before you had cried on the pavement of Leeds Street,

on the barstools of Garret Street,

in the stairwells of Anvil house,

before you had broken pastries

into pieces to share

with the long night

of karaoke

and Campari?

before you had tried to cut bread

with the dull edge of a butter knife.

What were you like when the golden hours

turned twilight and your family

moved you to Timaru?

When the calves became cows

in the paddock

became cattle

in the supermarket.

When the name of your river

could not wash your body clean.

Timaru was your first kiss

with tongue,

the first time you let coffee

grow cold on the counter.

Timaru was the first time

you wore high-heels

and tried to walk out of town.

The first time you had too much vodka

and learnt what it’s like to feel

that drinks are never free,

that kindness often comes

with expectations.

Even if we pour soap suds into the fountain

of the town square,

it will not clean the stench

of the tin-can children

that grew up, throwing up in Timaru.

Will you tell me a story that makes me believe

that Timaru is more than the tarnish

on the map of the Canterbury Plains.

I remember when we met in the valley of South Kaori Road,

after we swam in the seaweed water of Shelly Bay.

We built our first house in an old art gallery

by the ocean. After we swung in hammocks from the rafters

and lived without hot water for a year.

After my first tattoo,

and after we booked a ferry

across the Cook Straight;

and Christmas loomed

like a mountain with four peaks

after I met the parents and the grandparents

and the dog,

after the eggplants were in the oven

and the spuds were fresh from the ground,

and the salad was on the table

after you introduced me

to your river, Waihi.

I think of everything

we could become

in Geraldine.