PILBARA ROADSIDE
the scent of roadside animals/ like bad air blasts
smashing through my window glass/ one fawn doe/
dead/ light changing colour through the fur/ a
little further down/ her dead joey/ the spitting
image of her/ lying within the periphery of her
dull mothery eye/ mimicking her posture in every
way but smaller/ as if some kind or creative person
had stopped their car to place them in that way/
bringing them unmoving closer together/ within the
filmed glaze of her unseeing/ grey marsupial nose
drying hard on red clay/ all night the breeze
through the pouch/ south westerly from infant to
mother/ passing headlights of night travellers
searchlight across them/ nocturnal ants jabbing
at the undersides/ & in the dawn unhurried crows
& lizards on the road for morning warmth/ by eleven
o'clock their cold white bellies/ now turned
skywards/ side split & spilling purple entrails/
shrinking in the sun/
i could not avoid the grey
crashing finch across my windscreen/ i cried out
but when i stopped the car it was still moving/ in
the palm of my hand/ fast breath through the
tangerine bill & tiny desert eyes resigned to shock
& closing down/ into unseen territory beneath
tissue soft lids/ orange claws curling up on the
creamy breast & inward grey wings/ crushed life
closing down in my hand/ its injuries internal
beyond the power of my wishing/ i took away the
only thing it had/ its orange cheeked mate for life
peeping from an overhead wire/ & the suffering
finch quickly crushed beneath my tyre/ to complete
the job when death cannot be trusted to be sweet or
short/ my burnt elbow leaning from the hot car
window/ fingers throbbing claw like around the
steering wheel/ & pilbara birds squashed into
bitumen oceans/ winged feathers erect & flapping
from blackness at each dark vehicle passing/ & the
unseen tangled feathery mess beneath their half mast | 
