Veronica Lake is a Literature teacher and has been one forever. She collates and edits the student poetry journal Primo Lux, now in its twelfth year. In 2010 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for the Study of Shakespeare. Her poetry has been published in Blackmail Press, Cordite, Poetry D'Amour, Creatrix, Westerly, Regime and Cuttlefish.
Taonga
He gave to me paua shells;
sea-harvested,
sunlight winking off rainbow surface.
Dazzling Taonga,
whetu; treasure gifted from
the Gods who watch.
He gave to me their strength;
their resistance to moon-pull,
tugging of wave-surge and tidal-sweep;
clinging desperate to rocks
for survival
He offered me his love,
the mystery of dark warrior eyes,
his body; muscles traced by filigree lines
of endurance and power,
like paua shells shining in the sun.
I accepted.
