Wound-Exhaled

by Topher Shields

For those who name what they may not keep

Fronds bow, listening
under the moon’s gut-pull.

Breath pools
in the mountain’s gutted flank—
bodies breaking open,
jade met by salt-tide,
veins lit from within.

No cry
only wind’s blade
etching lineage
from basalt bone,
bow to blade to breath.

Fingertips read
the unnameable whakapapa,
each ridge a question—
lips held
at endurance’s hinge.

White space
swallows prayerless want
belonging
not seized
but

wound-exhaled

ash from the lungs
of the living
into the brief,
gashed gorgeousness
of being here.

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Topher Shields is a poet from Aotearoa New Zealand. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Puerto del Sol, The Shore, Cordite Poetry Review, DIALOGIST, The Bangalore Review, and Cathexis Northwest Press, among others. He was a finalist for the 2026 River Heron Poetry Prize. His writing explores inheritance, language, and the moral residue of place.