We set out when

the sky, too blue,

fell into the white rutile plains.

Past the ruins

of a failed salt venture,

heat already smudging the horizon,
until the Ruark Plain opened.
My uncle—

in a Jackie Howe and shorts—

drove one-handed,

a beer balanced on the wheel.
“At night,” he said

over the Land Rover’s drone,

“they see Min Min lights out here—
following,

just beyond the headlights,

always out of sight.”
He drank

as the vehicle bellied through sand,

red dust rising—

never spilling a drop.
We kept on

towards the Pink Lakes.
From Merbein, south,

cutting between tracks

through vines and red soil,
skirting the bitumen

so the bald tyres,

cracked windscreen,

no rego

wouldn’t draw the cops—
“Johnny Toppers,” he laughed,
twisting back for another beer,

steering blind

as trees rushed us—
then straight again, grinning,

holding it up

like a diver with a catch.
At the crest

the plain opened—

flat, endless—
and we drove into it,

 chasing something

just out of sight.