Jennifer Compton:

The Threepenny Kowhai Stamp Brooch – 

‘If I get lost someone will pick me up and post me.
I am already licked and stamped on my green lapel.

The brooch from Te Papa will see me safely home.
It’s 3d – as in LSD – pounds, shillings and pence.

Let us go out and do the passegiata on the waterfront.
If and when I get lost, you can slide me into the red box.

Of course I will be posted back into the past –
back to when kowhai was pronounced kowhai.’

———–

Gill says: ‘I have 5 of Jennifer’s books.

She was born in NZ but went to live in Australia in the 1970s and comes back to New Zealand frequently.

‘This poem was selected for Best NZ Poems in 2009 and was published in her collection This City which won The Kathleen Grattan Award for Poetry in 2010. It has always been a bit of a favourite of mine! I hope you enjoyed it! ‘