i counted the cracks
in the windscreen
of our hire car

a landscape
riveted by insect carcasses
powdered
with a film of earth so red
it leaves the taste of rust
in our mouths.

we are children again
melting into the back seat,
the windows rolled down
and i tune the radio
to the frequency of
powerlines and rabbit fences,
the perfect broadcast
for a journey that

starts out with a promise

but quickly becomes
interminable.

it is the fundamental law
of movement
– of course –
to be always not quite there,
and not quite here.

in fact,
the further you follow
the thin white line
the faster
it disappears.

you wanted deliverance
but instead we came
to a ghost town

“home!”
“let me go home!”

some where
the landscape moves so quickly it
interlaces
and you tell me that
this is how you see through time.

i concentrate, staring out the window,
colour pixels
rendered in rose quartz
and honey ant yellow—
those mineral shades that
are always part-way
through some kind of chemical reaction, alchemy.

i let my gaze become unfixed and
think about “continuity”…

our car is always
a movie camera
and each window
the perfect frame.

on this road
there is no beginning and end
and beginning and end,
only the part in the middle,
the part
happening now.

a stutter
of train tracks
crisscross
like a
constructivist film

a new landscape
coloured by iron

and redfern,
just a memory.

my hot breath
kept the
cold windows
moist
as the inside of a ribcage.

you were on the radio
most days
you played old love songs
a broadcast to no where

i kept the motor running at night
nothing careful, nothing tentative
about that constant hum.

a time capsule
of fragrances

and the knowledge
that everything must end

the possibility
of an archive

the promise
that something
will be remembered

a future city
full of children.

i felt the highway
tear a way like a page

every word written
was whispered

and there was nothing
paul kelly could tell us
that we didn’t already know.

i was watching all those things
which are quick,
become things which are
slow.