Aoraki moraine

after our still-frozen blueberries   

manuka honey and oranges peeled   

we were a drift of smoke  you and  me  

a drift of  smoke in unfelt fields

cold toes walking snow-tussock Aoraki  

where - heavy with silt - a lake of wet steel   

revealed the long shadow of a five-crag valley

and we chanced a look at what there remained:

colossal dice tossed free.

Later we were told they were the moraine  

what was left behind when a glacier recedes  

when a valley clears its throat of names. 

I remember you clearing your throat with the need   

to talk but I don’t recall your advice

or how your hand felt in mine, or our need  

to know what is left when the drift of us cleared:

a memory of a time that was    nice…  

of blueberries not thawed   that we feared

we would never break this ice

Brent Cantwell

Brent Cantwell is a New Zealand writer from Timaru, South Canterbury, who lives with his family in the hinterland of Queensland, Australia. He teaches high school English and has been writing for pleasure for 23 years. He has recently been published in Sweet Mammalian 4, Turbine|Kapohau, Cordite, Brief, Blackmail Press, Landfall, London Grip and Takahē.