Red Tin Shed

heading back 

a few tent pegs short

we ditched 

the canvas chairs. 

Last night’s fire

left a moraine of its own:

a charred patch

set in a circle of stones

the rough vowels

of a dry throat;

the hack of the axe

we left behind.

But the red tin shed

makes no sense!

It fits a map 

below the skin,

the calendar

of a less sheltered coast

where slow boats still

recede 

like each day’s

hard actual ice

leaving whalers, 

run-holders, 

botanists

& geologists 

always

heading back      

Brent Cantwell

Brent Cantwell is a New Zealand writer who lives with his family in the hinterland of Queensland, Australia. He teaches high school English and has been writing for pleasure for 21 years. He has been published in Verity La and in a Wellington Café Poems Publication called Eat Your Words.