It’s the sixties, and Grandma is a Pakeha
she has brown Irish smiling eyes and
a dowager hump, although she’s no rich
widow

She lives in a State House on George Street
purchased from the State with a State Advances
Loan which is being paid off by her youngest
daughter

Grandma had eight babies and then scooped
up another when her eldest girl fell pregnant
somehow Grandma fell pregnant too, two
boys

When Granddad got dementia, it was easy
enough back then. People just sent old Jack
home again when he got lost, it was a small
town

Thank God for the neighbour we all said
for years after, when he distracted granddad
with the axe raised behind Grandma 
Phew

Michael Joseph Savage was a Saint along
with all the other official Catholic ones
on the Columban Calendar in her
washhouse

It’s only now that I’m a grandmother that
I wonder why an old lady with Irish roots
and sparkling brown eyes, even knew
How to do a haka

What if I could go back and talk
to Grandma, over the ox-cube soup
she made for me one school day for
lunch

All I recall is saying (under my breath)
I must go now, Grandma, I must go
now Grandma, I must go…. And then
I did go

What I’d give to go back and ask her
about that haka…