the smell of freshly turned earth when we wake
& the groan of machinery outside
moving mounds of silt
from one end of the lot to the other
clearing slabs of chalk
that jut from the topsoil
of the town’s new rim
the county-road’s rain-filled potholes
moonlit
& stitching a route south of here
as we rustle in our sheets & dream
about the hill of dirt
in our yard being worked
closer to completion
as if it were our own child
moving nearer to term
at the lip of this bank
a scattering of foxglove sways
in the grip
of the october wind
the future tilled frantically
amidst the stink of diesel
& the diggers’ crude talk & soiled hands
the soles of their steel-capped boots
stretching the world
& building on it further around us
without us
Daniel Sluman is a 34-year-old poet and disability rights activist. He co-edited the first major UK Disability anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, and his second collection the terrible was published by Nine Arches Press in 2015. He has appeared widely in UK poetry journals and he was named one of The Huffington Post’s Top 5 British Poets to Watch in 2015. He is currently writing his third collection of poetry, about living with disability and chronic pain, to be published by Nine Arches Press in 2021. He tweets @danielsluman.
