Visiting Norm

Last night, in a fit of insomnia, dredged up one of my old drafts and got to work chopping and changing.


On Sunday
Tim drives me
past panting
bag-eyed hills
crevices alive
with white lice

into the drip
of wandering sun. Off
the declining Bombays
we stop for a latte
and a bag of overripe plums
near a roadside café

talk about the weather
and the upcoming election
with a dog outside.
“Smells like rain,”
he says, nose to the blue sky,
tail like the wind.

The gorge is a cool box
slung with glittering webs.
Dead miners shout
along the canyon
after young men
in armoured kayaks
trucks rattle their cargo
of slaughtered
lambs. Past safe

we emerge
into the murals
of Katikati, tractors
crawling their flaky way
along bricked walls,
stiff-armed pioneers smiling.

The kiwifruit maze
is the last block. Everywhere
flowers hung like embryos
from vines, sipping
warm liquid light.
Which way to turn?

It doesn’t seem to matter. Everywhere
it seems, a rutted road
to the sun. But finally
we ease along gravel path
past a man on a tractor
who waves us on,

to find an old man
with his dog
waiting.