by Tehnuka
It’s the season when I marry. My fiancé
is a white-veined, grey weathered, angular
stone who fits in the palm of my hand,
cracked from a mountain in the freeze-thaw,
born under the sea hardened
from parts of other stones
under the weight of other stones
that cracked from mountains and weathered into sand
We met when we heard a crack in the mountains
and we dove for cover, together
This was our shared inheritance.
It’s the season when birds peel from twigs,
litter the ground with bodies. The season they’re sucked
from the sky into the great Pacific gull gyre
and the clouds have stopped,
the air hot and still
though we always thought
the oceans would stop first.
It’s the season my husband loses all fear
now there’s only warm, no more freeze-thaw,
nothing to break him apart.
We think about children.
But when I hear a crack in the mountains
or anywhere
I still dive for cover. Safe in my palm, he asks:
What did you get from being born
to your parents
and the people around you?
TEHNUKA (she/they) is a Tamil tauiwi writer and volcanologist from Aotearoa New Zealand. She likes to find herself up volcanoes, down caves, and in unexpected places; everyone else, however, can find her online at www.tehnuka.dreamhosters.com, and some of her recent work in Reckoning, Apex, Uncanny, and The Deadlands. She was the 2023 winner of the national Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best New Talent.
Inheritance Season was edited by Escher McDonell. It can be found in Augur Magazine Issue 6.2.
