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Danny Bultitude

as a child, I was known for eating the wax along with the cheese

‘cos it came in waterfalls of sweet kaddish wine
irradiated       radiating on the ruby jellied tongues
sincerely asking how it felt to know that they fucked
more people than me           despite being younger
 
could it be the headlocks and aggressive team games
he said he’d learnt in the IDF               grinning, bulging
through his singlet with the subtlety of a saw blade
launched through            any Palestinian schoolyard

perhaps the ancient, scholarly women         avalanched
by bagel crumbs and talent only celebrated within
the slimmest         columns of the monthly newsletter
that throb alive like veins visible through a pink blouse
 
or the Rabbi              who sung and held my waist and
explained to me what furry fetishism was right before
my Bar Mitzvah because, by God     she knew how
to ease an anxious teenager’s nerves better than weed
 
maybe the one-eyed man who taught me to barbecue
the non-binary person in homemade skirt and bangles
every pink-hatted poet and dark-shirted attorney
the countless converted in a converted townhouse
 
and they all sit in the sandpit of my upbringing
            where I spent decades feeling that honeyed cut
forced into mind whenever rinsing a wine glass
            with tap water, peeling wax away from the cheese

they watch intently       in dresses and suits and starlight
holding memories for me         good, bad, queer, callous
with hands that have lived long        and made decisions
and smiling teeth I’ve come to recognise         from afar.

Biography

Picture
Danny Bultitude (he/him) is a Jewish Pākehā working at Ngā Taonga: Sound & Vision, New Zealand's Film Archive. He has had fiction, poetry, and essays published in several literary journals, but this is his first publication beyond the shores of Aotearoa. Despite popular opinion, he still prefers sweet kaddish wine to all other varieties. If you disagree, feel free to debate him on his Twitter: @dannybultitude  
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ISSN 2639-426X
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  • Home
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  • Issues
    • Issue 49
    • Issue 48
    • Issue 47
    • Issue 46
    • Issue 45
    • Issue 44
    • Issue 43
    • Issue 42
    • Issue 41
    • Issue 40
    • Issue 39
    • Issue 38
    • Issue 37
    • Issue 36
    • Issue 35
    • Issue 34
    • Issue 33
    • Issue 32
    • Issue 31
    • Issue 30
    • Issue 29
    • Issue 28
    • Issue 27
    • Issue 26
    • Issue 25
    • Issue 24
    • Issue 23
    • Issue 22
    • Issue 21
    • Issue 20
    • Issue 19
    • Issue 18
    • Serenity
    • Issue 17
    • The Audio Room
    • Issue 16
    • Issue 15
    • Issue 14
    • Play It Again
    • Issue 13
    • Issue 12
    • Issue 11
    • Issue 10
    • Issue 9
    • Issue 8
    • Issue 7
    • Issue 6
    • Hand to Mouth
    • Issue 5
    • Issue 4
    • Issue 3
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 1
  • Submissions