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.

i could think of
a hundred ways
to explain it in images
but nothing in words

maybe it’s
something like
that single straight hair
detached from a body
that keeps finding its way back
to my bed sheets

or maybe it’s
the weather this week
reminding us
that some things are
undeniable

a dream message

that tingle
at the base of your spine

right now

somewhere
in the world

a revolution
is happening.

and i allow you
the perfection
of doing
the only thing
you know how

the tyranny of language
is the moment
it doesn’t exist

and everything
i’ve told you
you already know.