re-living Zhongdian

Physically whimpering, shaking-it-off then turning away to cover your eyes. A bear-dog still
rag-dolls a scrappy puppy-bitch in its dribbling jaws.

Reacting late, I cried ‘don’t look,’ shepherding you down a roughly-cobbled lane, in a re-
sampled version of a Chinese town to a bar where someone played Muse’s live version of
Nina’s Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’. Although not the original, Zhongdian is still recognisably
Tibetan.

‘Don’t re-live what happened,’ earnest, forcing eye contact, holding you in my bare brown
arms. A dribble of spit on a silk-white rag-doll dress.

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Brent Cantwell is from Timaru, South Canterbury, and lives on the Gold Coast hinterland. He has recently published in Poetry New Zealand Yearbook, Meniscus and Mayhem. His first collection of poetry, tether, will be published by Recent Works Press in 2023.