After Kilsby’s Sinkhole, SA
Sag, Snake, Swallet, Swallow…
How do they avoid it—this heavenly pit lurking beneath desire paths?
Breeding ewes cluster as they lamb and wool
but they don’t fall in.
Divers canoe the limestone yawn,
drop to John Deere harvesters, bull skulls and barbed wire slung
down this marvellous hole.
Some take time out from iPhones to bask like wobbegongs.
Young soldiers—finned and slippery nose into tunnels where algae, moss-to-be,
nibbles patiently on limestone, biding its time.
They are lulled.
Sinister minerals from this portal make a womb fit for a platoon.
Horses put hooves through the green veneer.
A thousand tonnes of rubble make no plug in it.
Boys who would be men drown in it, knowing it’s there.