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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 7. April 23 1968

Cavatina

Cavatina

Spirogyra green and brown
waving in the swirling depths
blue-green water from the womb
the deepest trench yet
timing your plunge . . .

Cavilling virgins
wielding instructions before
my narrow mind:
I do not understand the law
and have arranged my private
auto-da-fé

Glass-eyed submariners
bleeding sockets I saw:
You called to me my friends?
and plucked me out of the air
into your close world
dragging me down so deep
I couldn't look up and

See the inflated pod-bladders
of the sky slowly rotating
around the scar-tissue of
my ruptured retina

There is a pearl inside my skull
which is of a careful culture
and too valuable to split . . .

Perhaps when my lungs burst
I will float to the surface
and be a buoy for

The wreck of my life. If you see
this carcass leave it floating,
my virgin mourners. Do not raise
up this defenceless shell:
simply screw a brass plate to the skull.

Rhys. G. Pasley