Chemwash
Building the word-hoard
brick by brick
masking the books with towels
when the water blaster comes
and takes much longer
than we thought possible
but he cleaned our letter box
as thanks for using the phone
the truth is
we were hiding inside
because neither of us could bear
the sight of his colostomy bag
I had to go out on the roof myself
to throw down the bit of tarpaulin
he’d missed
he offered to put up the ladder
once more but I couldn’t stand it
we’d been sitting behind pulled curtains
in fear of hearing the same story
over and over again
five times in a row once
(I counted)
and yet we liked him
he had a lovely smile
and was touchingly grateful
for any gift
however small
we offered
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.
