The black b-double Tom Coverdale (bio) It leaves so soon, that thrill of the hitchyou had when you set out, in the dayswherever you ended up was good.He never comes back, that jubilant rideyou sang along with all the way to Jacksonvilleor Quito, whose favourite songs were also yours.It comes, sure as arthritic knees, that hikeall day without a lift, walking forwards,walking backwards, crooning to the roadkillto bewilder the aches in your deltoidsand your supplicant thumb. How heavyyour pack then, as vehicles snarl and whipon by with shrugs, blanks, smirks, grimaces,thunder stared from lofty cabs, all sighingoff into wist, how heavy with things you zippedaway in pockets whose zips no longer unzip.They never mend, those synapses, they swingin the wind like the sorry halves of brokensuspension bridges, as you plod and failto remember your handful of words in Hindi,those sentences in Borges, or street namesin some city. After noon, it all compounds,the chronic ennui, the pains, fatigue, the creepof obliviscence. The wind screams like a drillsergeant, irate at your unfitness, till you can'traise a thought, save an arm, to save yourself.No sound then but the wind, gone hoarse,and the trudging of your breathacross an Atacama of the mind.It comes, in time, the rumbleof the ride we know is coming:quivering as it passes throughthe vertical lake back there.Its chrome and glass absorb the glare.It dopplers down through the gears now,preparing to stop for you. Its grille is cakedwith gore. It tows too many trailers.And the driver—the driver pullulates,like the mirage, with swallowed faces. [End Page 259] Tom Coverdale Tom Coverdale's childhood was divided between the Northern Territory and Queensland cattle country and South Australia sheep country, and for much of it, there was no television, just books. Since marrying a Polish woman, he has lived a life divided between Melbourne and Warsaw. His poetry and stories have appeared in Australian literary journals including Antipodes, Southerly, Overland, Cordite, and Quadrant and anthologies including Black Inc's The Best Australian Poems and Les Murray's selection of Australian poetry in Another English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World. Copyright © 2022 Wayne State University Press
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