In the River I Heard My Name Called

The fresh runs of water tuck
under envelopes of white wash.

Water, bodies, rocks scar;
they work to resolve themselves,
even if by embedding the fault.

This life, my old self—
a cold bath I can’t get out.

Still Life With a Lock
of Hair

What remains the same of me
if I wear different dresses now?
My nails have grown clean.
I have grown green. If you have me around
you will find hair discarded on the carpet.

At four, a symptom of my being a child
was an impulse to steal a lock of hair
from my mother’s baby book
and feed it to the surging wind. It disappeared

strand by strand, the garden grew wild for years,
she is still yet to comprehend the loss of her baby.
How foreign, that still life with a lock of hair—
virgin, virgin, cut with clean blades
at the request of another. I held still, locks fell,

what remained sat above the shoulder. Barely a shoulder,
she was two, the hair dropped like it barely knew her.
Translucent, still air blew it, light shone in golden lines.
A ribbon, nail thin, was wrapped around the piece to keep.

It was so young
and clean and barely a human thing.

Sofia Drew (she/her) is a high school student living in Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work is published in Starling and in 2022 she was a finalist for the National Schools Poetry Award. Aside from writing Sofia likes painting landscapes, goats and stars.