Yellow Lamp: First Thursday Poems Pride 2026

We are back with our second First Thursday Poems and this time around we have Ethan Christensen, Grace Shelley and Sarah Peters. You can catch Ethan performing on a rooftop on February 19th alongside Dan Goodwin, Jenny Rockwell and Laura Vincent at the Vol. Pride Yellow Lamp show. Tickets can be found here.

Fruit by Ethan Christensen

My father instructed me at a young age not to use a knife.

‘Don’t be soft… Just bite it,’ he’d say.

Nails were as good as useless after a stint in the creek or school sandpit. The throb of whites cut too-short – the fleshy pink beneath. Since then, my oranges have started as an apple would.

Begin with one orange. Symmetrical ones present the biggest challenge. Do not aim for the stem at the top because it will jab at your tongue. You don’t want to tackle the perforation at the bottom either: the mound of pith will glue your teeth together.

Take the fruit in your hand and feel its pores settle against your fingertips. Press its skin against your teeth and bite down

As its pores release acetate, expect spurts of fluorescence to douse your nasal cavity. Before any reward, there is work to be done. Your mouth surges with saliva and points your tongue. Your lips vibrate from the citric acid. Peel a patch the size of your finger away and spit it into the nearest bin.

With a crater now exposed, work a finger between the layers. I use my thumb, though you may prefer the dexterous index. You don’t want to push too deep and pierce the flesh, or the juice will run down to your elbows. Some, who must be less hungry or more patient, try to make a continuous spiral out of their peels. I find it unnecessary because the orange will taste the same.

Once you strip the skin from the flesh, bite to swallow.

_

Ethan Christensen is a writer from The Coromandel, currently based in Auckland. His work appears in publications across Aotearoa, and he contributed to the editorial team at Overcom in the latter half of 2024. He hopes others can see themselves in some of the lived experiences he puts to page, whatever they may be.

Dinner theatre by Grace Shelley

I thrill when you pinch up

single lentils and

post them into your mouth. Each

is less than the size of

your fingernails (now that

your hands have grown).

You already finished the noodles,

shoving the long strands in your mouth

with a glee only bested by the

whirr of your plastic lawnmower or

playing boo with Grandad, and then you

tipped the bowl out and there must be

fifty, a hundred or so lentils

sown across your tray. And

now you pluck them,

sequentially. Unlike your mother,

you never flinch to an overwhelming task.

Once full, you slowly observe the leftover pearls

with your fingertips, wondering at them,

their smallness, so much smaller than you.

Grace Shelley (she/her) is a writer, editor, teacher, and parent from Tāmaki Makaurau. Her work has appeared in publications including takahē, The Spinoff, Sweet Mammalian, Bad Apple, and Bloodbath. (@grace_gracegracegrace)

If I’m a Poet, Let Me Be an Old One by Sarah Peters

Ugh.
I want to be a poet.

But poets
die
young.

That’s the story anyway.
Candles.
Too much flame.
Everyone watching.

I don’t think I want that.

I think I want
to forget something
at the shop
and have to go back.

Milk.
Bread.
Something unnecessary.

I want to argue
about paint colours
longer than we should.
Stand in a kitchen
holding two nearly identical whites
pretending it matters.

I want the poems.
Of course I do.
The aching ones.
The ones that knock around the ribs.
But I want them written
slowly.

With your laugh
passing through the house
like it belongs there.

Pen in my hand.
Your hand still warm from the kettle.

Let the pages
take their time.

I don’t want to burn
for the sake of it.
I don’t want to disappear
into a good line.

I want mornings.
Coffee cooling on the bench.
Knees that complain.
Joy that doesn’t need
to prove anything.

If being a poet
means dying young,
then maybe
I’ll write slower.

Maybe I’ll stay.

Maybe loving you
is every line
I ever wanted to fold into aeroplanes.

_

Sarah Peters is a law student in Wellington. She writes poems in the spaces between deadlines, drawn to love, tenderness, and the quiet work of staying alive. Writing is where she makes sense of the world and her place in it.

(selected by Ash Raymond James)