Congratulations to the winner of the New Zealand Poetry Society Spring Instagram Poetry Competition for 2018:

Cerys  (@cerys_is_tired)

NOS DA
the days after
we’re advised to shut windows & mouths,
watch tumbleweed roll through the rusted fairground of
BAD MEN facing consequences. Sometimes

there is NO ONE THING to fit the prompt; no single dewdripped rhyme scheme to gum up the ferris wheel &/or make it all stop. it’s
more like this, yeah: whatever hangs in the sky, your body
acts accordingly. do not question it. the
cramping is to be expected. the blood is to
be plentiful. the shame is to be
total. the bleeders elsewhere, by which i mean here,
before my eyes,
are held down & scraped clean for a fear of the
hot & dark & life-breathing.
these are what we call wheels, rolling down some muddy hill at
dawn, the long-dead and oft-quoted dusting their hands with
satisfaction at the top. your story is too old to be of any use
if it saves you & others from being crushed. shut your
windows & mouths, let’s have a nice dinner for once. the wheel gobbles up ground. you know this doesn’t equate to
babies dying, right, i say to dad on the morning
i wake to Ireland’s women DANCING with bodies
that are their own &
his mouth c u r l s like a newspaper in the rain every victory is old news already
warm hands i love are muddy from the wheel
i say goodnight to him in welsh,
Gweld chi yn y bore the feverish five-year me
still hears the mashed words like
we’ll see you in the morna wheels, wheels, the long drive home & the being carried inside, through the hot & dark & life-breathing, god, god,
i hope
still my dad’s arms, with the weight of
two daughters, must understand somehow they
could not hold us for long out of anything
but choice.