(car / east)

I enjoy being a passenger in your car,
first climbing through gates
to touch the faces left back where we started – 
interrupted by radio
                 dirty “programme of abuse”,
                 hear “systematic failures”  
                 question why no one
                                 stopped.

But home in the car I’m safe,
you drive I’ll watch
for all potential left by the roadside:
                 goods and services
                 ramshackle market stalls
                 old men asleep on straw
                 dogs scratching patterns 
                 dead masters;

the difference is telling
but we drive on in silence
perfecting beliefs only when we pause.

Radio reports “feral children”
doctors fed them full for asking in sign;
is emotion taught?

Straw beds appeal
but we continue the road,
                 driven mad
by no sleep.

Each day we kiss up quick to the dawn
and he looks at me –
                 licking dew off a cut lip;
“with occasional access” 
to desperations – 
thinking too much about progress
is to miss the truth
that you are driving
and I am watching.

At speed the windows are film reels
stretched out beyond sense – 
bands of colour differing in width.

Heard “everything is together”,
when the celluloid burns
we can stop
and think about what we have done
where we have come –
                 always refusing speech.


Alexis