Ariadne remembers
I took him past the dark
entwined and unbidden,
no fear of monsters
only threads unwinding.
The disremembered child
discarded in the grays
awaiting smashed light
shadows become rivers.
From fractured horns
ropes emerge as bounty,
undressing on the beach
foam washes away red.
Charmaine Thomson lives on a hill above Pari-a-Rua. Charmaine studied performance music in the past. She has M.A. in Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka, Victoria University of Wellington. She published her first collection of poems, Licorice in 2012.
Her poems appear in publications including the 4th Floor Literary Journal, A fine line, A Vase and a Vast Sea, Blackmail Press, The Fib Review, Sport, The Shot Glass Journal, Turbine, and in the 2026 interdisciplinary ConFluent exhibition at Pātaka Museum with artist Bert van Dijk.
