Kelp

                                                         If I could I would marry Kelp 

                                    I would be a good kelp wife

                                                                striving for a good kelp life

                                                                                            I would tend to stipe and bladder

                                                ascending to day and moon 

                                                            toward the sunlit surface 

                                I would wait on flat sand 

                                                            to wave and weave you home.

                    Have you ever wanted to dive 

                                                deep into the kelp forest?

                                                                                                              Way down amongst the golden browns

                                to the anchored hold

                                               naked as a seal

                                                            slimy and willing 

                                                                                        I do

                                                            I will be a good kelp wife. 

                                            I will swim beside your upward reach

                                                            along the sway of you

                                                                                                    side by side

                                            like twine or thickened rope

                                                        rising and falling with the swell

                                            beyond the last rays of disappearing light 

                                    into the pulse and pull

                                    of the things we cannot be.

JM Lofley is a writer and instructional designer. Their work appears in classrooms and staffrooms throughout Aotearoa. They have also had poems and short stories published in Landfall, Rere Takitahi | Flying Solo, Kapohau | Turbine, 4th Floor Literary Journal, Headland, Shortz, Black Lantern, Takahē, Manifesto, Penguin Days, and Tidelines. 

 J M Lofley lives near the Otago coast and is obsessed with rimurimu | kelp as both Tangata Tiriti and descendant of the people from the North Atlantic coast. 

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