The body sits needling flesh
the tiny piece of tree
embedded under skin.
Building blocks for a giant
red granite cast in layers like skin.
Water runs along this empty bed.
Sadness is an immovable block
granite-heavy moving between
belly and shoulders.
Creams block sun so that skin
does not peel back to raw flesh
a screen, a veil.
The fine weave of the mosquito net
keeps at bay our vulnerability.
The flesh is soft whatever we say.
I net a shed full of iron tools
from another era, a box full of
grease nipples, five motors,
two compressors, iron bars
heavy enough for murder
a river pump complete with belt,
but no river to plumb.
The pumps and jacks need fixing
and the jerry can leaks diesel.
The funnel is a spider oiled into
efficiency; my pyjamas are wet
with diesel, hands greased.
A survival kit with the national flag from
World War II is a box big enough for
a few sandwiches. It is wet with
fifty-year-old mosquito repellent,
a red flag to gain attention, and
morphine in case of severe pain.
She sits opposite me writhing in pain,
and I am powerless to do a thing.
A russet wasp locates the dishwashing
bowl with its soapy suds. Somehow
it sends a message and a second wasp
appears, they rendezvous over the
soapy water. The afternoon hums,
idling to the buzz of bush fly wings.
The almost silent brushing
of wings, the hell terror. A world
gone grey. Featureless. All difference
expunged. A holocaust of sameness
from horizon to eyeball. The world
gone flat. The diff's broken, he said.
Fix it, she said, I can't drive across
the Nullarbor in second gear. That was
before the flat tyre on the eve of
the new millennium. A night
of stars and silence. She's learning new things
about knots: how to tie an end knot,
a knot which can be neither tied nor untied.
A magic knot. Some knots have freed
criminals, others made them. By night she's
trying to untie the universal knot.
The knot which keeps the stars in their
vault. Mothers' milk for a giant serpent
stretching, tying the universal knot.
But stars or not, a truckie's knot would
do to keep the roof rack secure atop
the car. Near Wilcannia there's rain
and the car does a slow pirouette, mud
flying like matter in an expanding
universe. The red kelpie goes hunting
among the spinifex. No morsels will
tempt her back. Next morning the kelpie
is unwell. A forlorn look in her eyes.
Vorloren say the Germans. A sense
of loss. She pulls cat's eyes from
the hardened pads of her feet. Stones
have made them raw. The skin peeled back
like fruit. Tonight they will read stones,
coins, cards and measure distance by the stars.
