This is an experiment in playing with time.  How it is at once: past, present & future.

… time is measured differently here …

on the near side of midnight … i drive through the town of childhood …
see pickles sitting in shadow outside the pub in the main street
just as he would’ve done a quarter century ago, when i moved away
i know now, i never really left

… less than a summer afternoon in memory later …
two foxes, an oval apart, cross the road in front of me
appearing in my carved tunnel of light, before running out

… in less than the time it takes for a ute to roll …
another car’s lights go from stabbing the stars, to my eyes
shocked, i forget to turn off my own high beam
the community radio station keeps playing sufi music in the darkness

… sitting in mum’s car with my first crush watching the a-grade
listening to songs that would later make me wince, talking about escaping …
as a star falls

… in the time it takes to fly through a dead woman’s house …
a kangaroo startles by standing up in the middle of the road
he seems to consider tackling the car head on, i see his muscles bunch
but i swerve, he leans back slightly & we avoid — narrowly

… in the time it takes to fall in love with a christian girl
wishing she wasn’t so religious nor so cute …
i remember telling a story today about one wonderful ex-girlfriend
which painted me poorly & my sister gurgling “& you wonder why she left”
“no i well know why she left” i countered, but now, here, in the black night
confronted by truth, i cannot remember why any of them ended

… in the time it takes for a fat boy to swing back on his chair …
i wonder what getting away got me, wonder whether if, like pickles
i’d be happier if i was still sitting outside the pub of my childhood

… in a moment no longer than my first kiss …
my little petrol pump lights up orange as we reach the city’s edges

after his day of running, chasing & playing, the dog sleeps the whole way home
untroubled

*****

Image: Starry Night by AlexRuizArt.