Robert Verdon, #233, Departure

I am leaving for the star-swept outback
Where the highway melts into the desert
Cold as rubber at midnight
Intelligent life underground
The gibber plain and the gubba SUV
under an anodised moon


clouds drag time across the power lines
over all the inner city eulogies
the tin globe of the planet falls apart
like a pipi shell in time
a girl with a glass eye behind a green gate


I have gone so far I tread on a spot
Where no human foot has ever fallen
Or so these angels say
Who guided me this way
Their opal stairs lead up to silver Sirius
lighting the whole solid sea


and I am leaving, leaving
forever