Lady Day


For Billie Holiday


Kunié is an island that’s a long way from Carnegie Hall, where Lady Day
sang about indiscretions with gardenias pinned to her hair. Who’d have 
thought catching a husband with lipstick on his collar would spawn a 
song of forgiveness and blanket acceptance. But Lady Day understood 
imperfection. How the desire to have something you need grabs you by
the short and curlies. Fists, flips and flings you out of your depth until
suddenly there you are, all grown up clutching a rainbow lollipop sucked 
to the quick, only to find the sticky stick isn’t a pot of gold.
  How could she throw stones to bruise another imperfect being? She’d
a universe of understanding at her fingertips. That’s why her voice was
potent. That’s why she didn’t blow lollipop sticks like poisoned darts
through a bamboo tube to impale her philandering husband’s dick to the
bedpost. She just couldn’t. What was one imprint of need when she was  
imprinted all over with her own and other people’s cravings? Branded
and bruised within and without, Lady Day self-medicated with music, 
promises and potions. Infused herself to deaden the pain. Cried herself 
to sleep the best she could. 

Lady Day’s heart trembled like banana leaves shredded in a cyclone when
she sang ‘Strange Fruit’, a song born from the injustice of lynch-mobs and 
a poem penned by a school teacher from the Bronx. Sometimes she sang it
to audiences at integrated clubs, her voice brimming with grief. Imagine
Lady Day, feisty yet fragile with white gardenias in her hair. The lights
dimmed. Her voice rising like a kite from an isolated spotlight. Her heart
connecting to lost souls.
‘Strange Fruit’ got Lady Day inside Time magazine, but many people 
didn’t understand the context of the lyrics. Like the woman from Los Angeles
who called out, “Sing that sexy song. The one you’re famous for. The one 
about naked bodies swinging.”
Lady Day refused. 

I woke this morning to lights hovering between rows of araucaria pines, 
and three-note birds whistling softly at pirogues parting the translucent 
water of the bay. At first I thought Lady Day had netted moonbeams,
for today is July 17, the anniversary of her death and her voice is drifting 
out of radios. Settling over the village. But as I walked toward the dancing
lights I was enveloped by clusters of golden butterflies. They lifted me 
over the rickety palisade fence to where the tide had breached the coral 
reef to deliver a cargo of cuttlefish.
I picked one up. Scratched its albino exoskeleton with a finger nail.
Thought about how different Lady Day’s life would’ve been if she’d 
worn her skeleton like an armour on the outside. Covered it with a frock. 
Imagined her feeling safe and loved. Laughing, dancing and singing by
the light of a golden moon.

Stars are like divas. They have genealogies and personalities. Heavenly
stars can explode into a supernova, a massive hydrogen cloud that’s a
womb for fledgling stars. Or they can morph into a giant red, a mighty
outburst that engulfs and destroys planets before collapsing into a white
dwarf – a heavy old star. 
Divas also experience fluctuations in their luminosity and gravitational 
pull. They can rise with a heliacal flourish. Explode into an arena of fame
or infamy. Burn out. Fall from favour. Linger listlessly as their lustre dims.
Sink suddenly into oblivion. 


Lady Day was a forlorn and dehydrated star when her lawyer refused 
to represent her in court. Arrested for possession of narcotics, unable to
stomach food, she pleased guilty as charged. Asked to be sent to hospital
in a voice as broken as her heart.
When Lady Day emerged from prison she was greeted by Bobby, her 
pianist, and Mister, her beloved dog. Mister was overjoyed. He leapt onto 
the light of his life, knocked off her hat, felled her to the ground, licked
her back into civilian life. Mister made such a racket that a passerby 
screamed that a dog was savaging a fallen woman. A crowd gathered.
The press arrived. 

Sanctuary and peace can be difficult to find – let alone keep. Lady Day 
understood that we’re anchored tenuously to this world with roots  
that are just shallow claws scratching the ground. We can stand arm in 
arm with others of our kind, like a grove of trees resisting a terrible storm, 
or we can just let go. Topple and succumb to the labyrinth of a new day.
Survive. Or not.

Rest in love and peace, Lady Day. Free at last. 




Serie was born in Aotearoa to a German-Samoan mother (Lotofaga) and a Palagi father. Her "Tapa Talk" collection was translated into Ukrainian, and in 2019 she attended its launch at a book festival in Kyiv. Serie's poetry collection, "Sleeping with Stones" was short-listed at the 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards, and her latest poetry collection, "Standing on my Shadow", was long-listed for this year's Ockham NZ Book Awards.