lost & melting on some road
in the Waikato

I’ve driven this one at least
a hundred times before

one-strip airport
buckled wheelrim in the curb

Women’s Refuge well-funded
nestled between two bars

welcome mural is
Much Ado About Cattle

used to pass this town fortnightly
visiting an ex-girlfriend

her mother really beat her
with Bible verses

back then I’d just decided
to study human evolution

thought I could’ve given her mother
a real battering back

if only I’d known how
to get a word in

shaved the beard from God
early into the study

began to see
Australopithecus drop from trees

knees straightening
to the wonder of walk

Habillus making some shape
out of stone

knuckles are co-opted
for fighting

tastiest animals are arranged
into homemade herd

God’s place
is erected

on a tired, worried
lot

overgrown & empty
between cattle & cemetery

making order
of things

in a place of
orderless things

& later the roads
to link the moneys

of one town
to another

trucks to lumber
the lanes

trafficking desires
of the new mind

to &
fro

so hungry for
exotic fruits

rarer meats
televisions

a song
or two

& then more silence
at dusk

today, I see that truck
passing me

lugging bottled water
to my city

& I know to follow it
til the road forks

at the corner
of the church’s carpark

then turn right
onto the highway

& keep driving
myself along

singing the
sapien song

oh! just drive me
home

& back
into history