I remember red sand
on his windscreen,
how it obscured things:
that road out in front, those white lines
approaching, repeating, appearing
then disappearing, like bad jokes,
until he ran out of gas.
At the side of the road
behind the visitors' map to Mungarani
I scooped red soil
as thick as the palm of my hand
& looked towards the horizon
at the distance I would have to walk
beneath the brim of my hat.
When I tried to crank him back up
he barked with dry throat -
a bird, high up, circled
recorded our presence
like a ring on a map
marks a waterhole.
I stood beside him for shade
waiting for someone
to put us back on track
but nobody came.
Then he watched me leave
on foot
a stick figure with his thumb out
knowing I'd return to him
with my jerry-can
like an arsonist, red dirt
& fire in my eyes,
to take him home.
***
I left footprints where I had walked
behind me
but found wooden stumps & wire
with my fingertips
& a wind
not unlike a voice
carried my prints away
as if they were salt
& temporary.
Below a scaling sun
my lizard skin peeled back
the surface of a stone
& I saw bones
through the salt-drenched ribs
of leafless things.
I returned to him
paler than dead wood
with my jerry-can full.
***
I took him home
spoke about our history
our dry voyage
of things left behind -
spare wheels, blown tyres
& oil patches on the side of the road.
We had cruised the sunset country
in search of relics, artefacts
for leftover bits of old things:
useable parts, moveable scraps
things thrown out, or simply
discarded.
We brought our findings home
& piled them up on top of each other
like bodies in a cemetery -
then prayed over them
until someone came
& took them away
until we had nothing but ourselves
& our half-forgotten stories
to live with.
***
And now he's that broken down car
parked out front, rubber-less & rusted
from all those mission trips, nothing but
a stripped shell
with a speck of red sand in his ear
like an echo inside
a beached shell, a poem, a derelict house
waiting for a fire
to burn out; I can tell
by the flame in his eye
that small things have stayed too long
like kidney stones, & pain,
memories which won't go away.
***
You looked in the papers
& found that car FOR SALE
but the price tag was too high
& you said, "There's too much work to be done on it."
So, I did what had to be done.
I dragged that old car down into the back paddock
where he couldn't be seen from the road.
There, in tall grass, I poured petrol on his
peeling skin & with a match, set him alight.
I watched him burn the late afternoon
like a premature sunset, until the sky above
resembled a charred thing, black ash raining
from the apocalyptic negative of a heavenly cloud.
When narcissistic night spread
its long-legged shroud of darkness
I took my bone warmed body
home to an uncomfortable bed
where I dreamt of open roads, deserts,
the broken things between us, how much
I needed him, apologising, for not letting go
when he'd had enough
& when I woke, the following morning, I saw him
distant but present, gazing up at those hills
as if he were alive, as if he'd never left,
as if he weren't mine, in the first place.
