Radio Poem

Cadence Chung

All I can give you is the space in a room, my heart already some distant packing-crate away, my lips unanswered for. In the middle of the day the unplugged radio transistor starts speaking like the voice of God: I was walking down long gravel roads with one shoe. It was raining, and so cold. I didn’t know what else I could have done. When it stops, it’s like something has been slowly segued out of the air. The absence of that voice is rolling over in the night and finding nothing but sticky bedsheet. It’s kissing your prom date with your eyes shut. It’s fucking and getting fucked up on a Tuesday. What else could I have done, with that red-light, mothy mothy desire, the type that bugs beat themselves to death over? It was raining and I was cold. I had one shoe; everything was wearing thin. I cut the air like a thigh, and there you were. You were in a T-shirt and shorts. You looked so cool.

Cadence Chung (she/they) is a poet, composer, and musician from Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, currently

studying at the New Zealand School of Music. Her nationally bestselling poetry book 'anomalia' was

published in April 2022 with Tender Press. She also performs as a classical soloist, presents on RNZ

Concert, and co-edits Symposia Magazine.