How To Murder Waterloo Sunset
Poet: Anita Arlov
​
‘To miss.’
You’d asked me my favourite song
a week before my birthday.
You were ailing.
It felt pointed.
Important.
‘I’m missing you’ can mean I miss you >>significantly<<
Easy, I’d said. That melody, trickling like water.
The lyrics reflect an Impressionist painting.
(Was I gushing? Breathing hard?)
‘I’m missing you’ can mean I miss you while something else ê“¥ is happening
A week on, there you were
on the end of the line
somehow propping your phone where a mic would go
everyone else’s rock star
chords down
word-perfect.
‘I’m missing you’ can mean I miss you THIS MINUTE
Cushion colour, kitchen clatter,
the sparrow-loud bird-feeding tree;
I blanked them out and time stood still
as I took you in, you
playing me that indulgent diary
out loud in private.
‘I’m missing you’ can mean I miss you underscored
The bitch is, when a DJ spins it now
- I might be buying red on special,
hanging on for a human on the help line,
breaking down tense in the staffroom -
it’s no less brilliant, but I can’t get past the present continuous
Death of You.
‘I’m missing you’ can mean I miss you unfinishe-
Dirty old river, must you keep rolling?
​
Anita lives in Auckland Aotearoa/ New Zealand. She writes poems and flash and occasionally judges comps and runs workshops. She hosts the monthly gig Inside. Out Open Mic for Writers. Anita won the Divine Muses Poet Competition in 2017and convened the NZ Poetry Conference & Festival. In 2018 she gained first place in NZ’s national flash competition and placed second in the June 2019 Bath Flash Fiction competition. She is widely published in journals and anthologies.