Kiss by Rachel Bush

This morning my dad said
Who’s moved my bloody cellphone?
Christ why can’t people leave my things alone.
There was just the two of us.
I said I never even touched your cellphone and my dad said
Where the hell is the bloody thing? Oh forget it.
Get yourself dressed. I’ve got to get to work.
Aren’t you dressed yet? Then he didn’t talk
till he dropped me at my mum’s and he said
Kiss.

by Rachel Bush from Nice Pretty Things and others 
Published by Victoria University Press
Used with the permission of Victoria University Press

                                                            Editor: Emma McCleary

I don't write poetry and we should probably all be glad for that. However, what I like in a poem  is observations of the everyday, which Kiss has in spades. I'm hugely admiring of people who can take a seemingly normal activity - something that would otherwise be overlooked - and write it down in a way that's instantly recognisable to us all.

I also really like that although this Dad is a bit fraught he's clearly a good Dad - he's frustrated but there's no aggression in the poem. There's a particular kind of way a strung out father speaks and this poem captures that perfectly. My own Dad used to use this tone when we was wallpapering; muttering to yourself and using the word 'bloody' is really at the core of it all.

Emma McCleary is Web Editor at Booksellers NZ. She loves buying books from her local bookshop and reading - currently Stonemouth by Iain Banks (labouring through) and most recently The Forrests by Emily Perkins.


When she's not putting stuff on the internet, she runs her craft empire, Emma Makes.


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