Bio
Alison Denham is a New Zealand poet, now living in Dunedin. Poetry has been published in various journals and magazines in NZ and the UK such as Poetry NZ, Sport,Takahe,Iota, NZ Listener. A first collection of poems was published by Christian Grey NZ, Auckland in 1999 and subsequent poems in an anthology 'When the Sea Goes Mad at Night' also by Christian Grey.
Alison Denham
Party Tricks
Pulled from the undercurrents of sleep,
in the middle of the night by my partying father,
my brother and I perform for guests our telepathic
party trick. Cross legged on the floor in rumpled pyjamas
to the tune of 'Bobby let them go back to bed' we receive
hearts, diamonds, clubs and spades from each other.
His mind and mine, one long shout.
A school house next to a school pool and our own key.
He woke us once at midnight to toss us in the pool,
to show the partygoers how we'd taught ourselves to swim.
Swum hard to the other side, towards the warmth of our beds
and kept swimming all these years