He pulls out to the wrong

                                                  side that morning, doubleparked

                                                  trucks tense him up

                                                  so dangerous, meat-hooked

                                                  carcasses, latched-open doors,

chilled pink in him more

than risk gritted in his teeth as

he overtakes, still he

                              drives heavily,

wrestles left,                                      tyres abandon

pneumatics,                                       grinds around

a corner too                                       close, struggles

through the forty zone past

the high school – aren’t we all

exhausted

                   and over-heated

                                                  teenagers wishing

                   to do nothing while the world

misjudges?

                   We ruin our way

along the streets, how much space we take to which we are not entitled, with paper

and gum and all that language falling off us as we go

                                                  outside the bakery,

another van unfolds, trays of wheat

and yeast and bicarb and salt

cooked up around lower grades of fruit

asphalt and diesel,                               next hazard

for through-traffic                               which is him

with his down-                                      turned mouth and flexed

lips and urge to                                    cry, inexplicable.

If only something                                 would explode or

tear   itself   to   pieces   or   if   he                                       could,

he’s too meticulous to do other

than drive.

                                                  He recomposes,
intrusions built into little coddled streets

shaking the car this way, that, build character,

someone in council must’ve watched a lot

of stretched-metal cartoons. His car so fragile

as to scratch up

under

             falling

                         leaves.

                                   Trucks everywhere, nowhere

safe enough, carparks

too small for anyone.

How has it come to uncountable boxes back and forth along the highways,

this to there and that to here, so many lives taken with windscreens and squinting

and noise, he winds down the window where he

shouldn’t among the petrol stations where

fumes hurl and swirl like discount vouchers

If only he could glitch out of here for enough time

                                                            to inhale some other place before driving onwards.