Lucky Punch

By Simone Kaho

Lucky Punch is a love story set in tiny natural worlds sheltering from the encroaching urban dystopia of 1980s Auckland. The characters grow up together, yearn, fight, dream and stare at walls. Their personality quirks clash with social norms as they navigate through cultural voids and colonial Pacific bloodlines. This is modern lyric storytelling with the pace of flash fiction, deceptively matter-of-fact poems with alluring depths that yield more each read and hard angles that can leave a bruise. Step inside this beguiling world where wildness prowls the neighbourhood.

“It was me who said this is the last time. You had already become my black star, hovering across the table, my words blowing through the blurry ring between us where it all came true. In the bar behind you, people were grey, see through. I still thought of you then as the first bird in the morning. Singing a sweet unrecognisable song, making me wonder who is singing. Is this how the thrush sounds? The blackbird? Could a sparrow sing like this? Lying there, not waking, just continuing to be awake. Hearing this joyous lilt and thinking about a long wooden post with a figure slumped at the bottom. An army salute rings out, young men’s lips pressed to brass, their only imperfection a desire to smile when the song is done.”