ONCE

Shot like an arrow

through quivering distance,

not caring for the target, simply

glad to be released

from the tense, drawn bow

of one moment and the next,

we are making our journey.

At first, crossing the border,

an afternoon of glassy heat,

of stickily-gripping tyres

hurrying beneath

over smooth, flickering miles.

The sealed concrete highway

is flecked with tiny crystals

like the twinkling pins-and-needles

in boot-bound, swollen feet.

Curling in my socks, my numb toes

uproot themselves

and wrestle into knots.

The treadmill of whirring wheels

is stirring me to sleep

but slowly. It might be hours:

the lifetime of a peach

sucked to a small stone,

another service station

with old, dismantled wrecks -

one, a fatal crash,

with mushrooms through the seat,

a directory on the dash;

pages of other maps

like lines branching on a palm

that could have brought them

anywhere, but brought them here,

thirty miles from the next town.

Until then, an autumn-coloured plain persists -

pools of water blistering the land,

crows nourishing themselves

on a meal of lard and muscle,

uncovered wind-picked roots

reaching through the sand.

And then, the end of endlessness.

We are pulled on by the future

like a loose thread,

and the fabric of the scene

is coming unstitched,

gradually, continually

unravelling as we speed

from that country dry as a cricket pitch,

into a green outfield of leisurely existence,

new landscapes being stitched out of the old,

fields of produce rolled and unrolled,

as we pass a dropped stitch -

an abandoned parish church

in an empty field.

Once, like this windshield

where rays of sunlight meet,

it was the centre of all this distance.

SG McInerney