BRENT CANTWELL
Always-shifting ground
There’s a place for us on a broken plateau
and there’ll be no movement ’til we’re told
…yeah, right, the Hooker Valley’ll not blow….
The tussock’s a disturbance of gold.
There’s a place for us in a recently booked hotel.
The turn-offs are clearly marked with an
…under them mountains there, hell…
and the sight of a flaccid thumb’s tradition.
There’s a place for us with a seismic kind of view.
…the sheets’ll be creased… winks the manager’s missus
actually saying, …staking your claim? too
though we’re slate-panelled walls of heavy promises.
We lay – or we will lie – in a hotel looked back on –
or forward to – on always-shifting ground.