new zealand poems: trainride

the wind drags its fingers through

the sand. Have we become numb

to this? the feeling of grey cliffs carved

by river, carved by glacier, by dynamite

as we speed through. “what must it

have been like, to lay the steel forward

into the unknown” my mother

asks. “you make me think of that.”

I am wheeling through

Tunnels and fields like the gulls

Through the sky. The walls of

The mountain are close when

We run in, it is dark

In the husk and bright when it is

Broken. All of us pupate

In silence—I sleep when I want it to end,

Don't know about you.

We steal touches across a void:

Did you know they moved up

A meter in the quakes? Even when

It seems everything is falling. Do you

Want a lolli? Im thinking of a bracelet

For her.

What have we forgotten

We’ve forgotten?
Can it be done on purpose?

Because these rolling green hills

With sharp yellow flowers

Are making me remember

I could live here

I might die here in the grey

Passes as a storm rolls in.

The wind is tugging at my sleeve,

Asking me to go inside—

But in the cold I remember

Nothing specific but something

Quite old

I am a wild animal

Reading symbols into the elements,

Scared and shivering,

Alive and trying

To stand on two feet

And mouth the name of god.