If he were angrier, it would be better

for them. She would like that more.

Want him in a way she can’t anymore.
They can’t be in the car anymore. Camp

in an empty lot beside a football oval off the highway

a few hours north of Melbourne.
Black cockatoos laugh at sunset.
At 4 a.m., a car whips in. Gravel fireworks, high

beams catching the apple-green tent fly. He imagines
they can see him. Silhouetted, as his toes

steal glances at her heels pumiced

smooth by seabed. The lovers—
frenzied in that focused, eloquent, ice way.

She trusted that psycho who pranks her at work

threatens him
threatens to rape his kids—

she ate his come. Lent him four grand.
And she won’t loan him? Won’t trust him? Is she going to

shit        why’d they take this exit?
Boot in the door if the toilet’s locked.

Go on the ground. Go on the ground, dog.
Where’s his pipe? It’s not under the seat and if she doesn’t

find it in ten seconds. Where’s that fifty bucks?
Awake now, she holds him. He holds

the wrench from the vestibule. A man who longs to run

clean as boiled water
gums rust off the wrench head. So many addicts

roam in couples like birds, he thinks,

outside sadness, retooled for murder.