BRENT KININMONT The Christchurch Test Around the empty caskets her father piled trunks, till that crossing was a buried thought. In the breathing room before another carriage of belongings he wrote of Anchorage, the hours stowing sails below deck with her brother. He never saw clouds this swift, rushing through a haka – his England eclipsed by shadows. Through the bodies of water the crowd appears to be sailing. It carries her back to the start at the end of her gangway, to her father not budging, maybe hoping the weather would change her mind. About him all those trunks were fastened. To say nothing of what’s inside. The Labours The car is at the garage. Still, she is slayed when he flies back every evening on a ten speed. Down the straight from the roundabout after his shift, he risks signals (Greers, Ilam, Clyde) to shave seconds from that long breath to the start of Bealey where an open window keeps her bed lamp on, his body is spent, salted with water. On her dresser he places leg clips, on the sill her remote. From across the city drones a Hercules warming up for the ice. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brent Kininmont lives in Tokyo. Long before moving to the Kanto Plain, he lived on the Canterbury Plains. Return to 2013 contents >