The Phone Rang
in the middle of the night
it was my father
I don’t know where I am
I don’t know how to explain it
I’m lying on a slab
in a room full of water
there are other slabs around me
but I can’t get to them
there’s no-one else here
do you need help?
I don’t know
I don’t know where I am
next day he rang again
to apologise
bad show
he said
are you feeling better now?
I don’t know
I don’t know what I told you
so I can’t really say
Jack Ross is the author of four novels, five books of short fiction, and six poetry collections. A seventh, Tesseract, is due out in late 2026. He was the managing editor of Poetry New Zealand (now Poetry Aotearoa) from 2014-2020, and has edited numerous other books, anthologies, and literary journals.
He retired from his job teaching creative writing at Massey University in 2022, and lives with his wife, crafter and art-writer Bronwyn Lloyd, in an old Art Deco house in Auckland, New Zealand.
