driving home from the airport (Palmerston Nth), (not my grandfather but) T driving. Motorway. T has Chinese classical string music playing, the same 5 bars repeated over and over the whole way. Of the five bars the internal three are the same - the first bar leads into this repetition and the fifth resolves it. I'm puzzled that this is enough, he loves music, and he (is my grandfather) notes that some jazz & blues music uses this structure too. Sings something like the Midnight Special using this. The Midnight Special doesn't use this.

My mother is driving and talking fast, with intellect and reference, I feel sluggish, can't keep up or understand her. She's irritable and I'm resentful about this, that's the overtone, she keeps talking, I keep missing it. As we arrive home we pass a couple of buildings - pagoda structure, but in cladding and colour all colonial bungalow. The towers are tipped over & I exclaim about this - but no, she corrects me - what am I talking about? It's just a crossbeam I'm seeing, not the whole structure tipped - this repeats and I have to apologise several times for my visual errors, part of this sluggishness. Later I come out of the house and yes, there it is, the tipped tower leaning by the pantry. It too is a food store I realise and in the collapse the highest compartment has sprung open. Supplies in there - a baby bottle, snacks, emergency food, all  labelled "for pregnancy". I realise why I feel so sluggish.

While visiting in someone's formal lounge, the hot-cheeked Dolly got her glass eye fixed on a Lucky Bamboo. Whirring happened. The Lucky Bamboo, because it was not bamboo but a kind of coral, sessile, snuggled in its little vase, & grew on, rooting, the marbles, the glass, no problem, no cramping, no tipping. But the host saw how Dolly's eye went. Dolly was unlucky.

There was a word that had been taken out of her programme. Because the word was not possible without her cogs locking Dolly instead had long conversations with the host about a sheep called Ewe, a large Ewe, mysterious, wool deeper than fingers and full of crawling cities of creatures, productive, & largely unseen, & endlessly mobile. Where the wool shortened to fur around Ewe's tuberous nose, the creatures could barely be glimpsed - for the secrecy of their activity and for the sensitive Ewe's comfort, they rarely crawled there. And Dolly, if she glimpsed them there, did not address them. But would Ewe go for a walk?

Often lambs follow dollies but Ewe was already walking, ropy knees folding up the work of a steep hill, hoofs clapping out stones' sounds into the bracing sky. The hill was by the sea. Dolly wanted to put her hands in the wool and maybe to climb on, but Ewe was too fast, and when Dolly caught up she found they were already on a very narrow path near the top of the hill. On one side a steep bank dropped down all the way down to the blue sea, but on the hill-side of the path Ewe's divine nose was paused and rippling, nuzzling, burying itself in something sweet and thorny that dangled over from the upper bank.

While Ewe nuzzled, Dolly's glass eye became fixed again, this time on the whirlpool below, churning rocks for centuries. "Dizzy," said Dolly's voicebox. Whirrr. "Dizzy. Dizzy. Dizzy. Dizzy." She teetered, looking down.

Ewe finished chewing and swallowed. "It is dizzying," Ewe said. "I used to look sometimes and feel scared. But look, brambles."

"Brambles. Brambles," said Dolly and turned towards Ewe, reaching out.

"My brambles," Ewe said, stepping a little closer to Dolly. Dolly reeled slightly, the sea tipping up behind her.

"There are more further on," Ewe said as the sea settled back down. "You can have those, just a short way further up the path."

 Dolly's glass eye looked ahead and saw wool, tangling and crimping, curling and clumping around warmth and burrs, silky with lanolin, and filling the path from one side to the other. "How," said her voicebox. "How. How."

"Just push past me and keep walking," Ewe said, and resumed nuzzling and eating. "It's easy after that." Deep in the wool the creatures swarmed.

Dear Doctor,

I was wondering if you could see from this photo of my face that I am a violent offender? There are lots of things or a few things anyway that I would like to do with my time now but not sure what. And not sure whether it will cause problems, if you can see it. The records are alright. But your professional opinion would be a kindness. Don't publish it.

who said this is all exactly as I planned it, that awareness of assembly, from somewhere out of the exclusion zone. who said actually I think it is appropriate for this child to learn about their career as the one in the world who stands holding the buckets, because as it is supposed to be. the lines converge this way.

well, shall we open the shed? and shall we find there the sleeping sables, caged, the soft soft flank of one dumbly draped over the muzzle of a sleeping gun? sleeping, all the sables sleeping. while she is in the old falling down summer house gathering up her things. what things does she have. she has her father’s things, which she considers now her own. his great green jersey of rough wool, with its holes in the elbows and hard beads of dripped white paint. this’ll be warmer than what she’s had so far. and she’ll have his eyeglasses for reading, for when she learns to read. and she’ll have what’s in his bedside drawers, the unopened packets of outdated biscuits and crackers and discounted sweets, and the butcher's calendar, and the magazines full of cartoon pictures of naked women and photos of readers' wives. and socks, and the brace for his knee.

he’s clumping through the bush at the back of the property. he’s holding down the fence with his stick, pulling his bad leg over. moving closer to us. whispering some verses.

this is for you. it is not about you or to you, but I wish it was with you. or it is with you, about you, for you, to you. it will be with you. it will be with you. it is not about you. it is with you.

this is for me. it is not about me or to me, but I wish it was with me. or it is with me, about me, for me, to me. it will be with me. it will be with me. it is not about me. it is with me.

it will be with you, a walking. a donkey alongside. the gravel releases dust and the dust takes up the sun, dumping it across the valley. it is now 22 degrees and 6pm. the decline is fitted with small mauve wildflowers. we can look at them fined in the light and dark, narrow for pleasure. with that I have an excellent headache, from the tightening of the sun’s plates against the hills. while the dog and the donkey chase each other through the discards we stand here cantering our plexuses, in arms. there’s nowhere to set the baby down. when I had this pain before I didn’t believe my hip was weighing up a weight. when I saw the gravel I didn’t know you would be with me, to hold and cantering.

it will be with me. a strong lower back and rain or light as circular breathing. it will be with me your cream-covered book. a mouth full of simple exercises in shaded awnings. let no more than a lungful. need it be one after another, in and out, left and right? only without clarinets, and so far these continue, in will be with me. I am still walking. at times it has been said that the problem is exacerbated by the fact that even dictating physicians frequently have difficulty with plurals and that this pushes the burden straight back on the transcriptionist. but this is a legend from the past world. in will be with me it will be with me, this alongside and with pains. this in between fingers and around fingers, the gravel light. this donkey I am conscious, and child.

for, with, about, to

"this is all exactly as I planned it."

somewhere in there beautiful dreams, fleeting but deep. stepping easily across a gap, from one board walk to another. and crossing a large river, over a long, quiet bridge.