lost & melting on some road in the Waikato
I’ve driven this one at least
a hundred times before
one-strip airport
buckled wheelrim in the curb
Women’s Refuge well-funded
nestled between two bars
welcome mural is
Much Ado About Cattle
used to pass this town fortnightly
visiting an ex-girlfriend
her mother really beat her
with Bible verses
back then I’d just decided
to study human evolution
thought I could’ve given her mother
a real battering back
if only I’d known how
to get a word in
shaved the beard from God
early into the study
began to see
Australopithecus drop from trees
knees straightening
to the wonder of walk
Habillus making some shape
out of stone
knuckles are co-opted
for fighting
tastiest animals are arranged
into homemade herd
God’s place
is erected
on a tired, worried
lot
overgrown & empty
between cattle & cemetery
making order
of things
in a place of
orderless things
& later the roads
to link the moneys
of one town
to another
trucks to lumber
the lanes
trafficking desires
of the new mind
to &
fro
so hungry for
exotic fruits
rarer meats
televisions
a song
or two
& then more silence
at dusk
today, I see that truck
passing me
lugging bottled water
to my city
& I know to follow it
til the road forks
at the corner
of the church’s carpark
then turn right
onto the highway
& keep driving
myself along
singing the
sapien song
oh! just drive me
home
& back
into history