Cats eyes line the meanders, drifting off right, wondering left.
Clutching fog lamps, casting back a luminous dot to dot;
morse code decorated trenches: cracks in the trails ahead.

White noise peters in as waves crack the shore,
salt water droplets - tortoise and hare; that game

you played as a kid willing the underdog to win.

The dogs on his back in the backseat, legs in the air.

Underneath him the blanket you wore the first time

we jumped from the pier to the sea, a pair of young fools

romantically free, not strung to the walls of marital tension,

mortgage loans, pensions pressing the wind out your lungs

and life out your heart; the bond we shared has drifted apart.

Crash on the land, the pounding waves;
gush of the tides shivers down your braids.
One hand on the wheel, one hand on yours


you take it away as we brush past the moors.
Rumble over rubble, our suspension knocks
wooden slats creek as we speed past the docks.

Turn to me teary eyed nostalgia, I swerve between the bench
and the toll booth, two dodgy dogs notice running and flailing,

as the last fence approaches. The tiniest movement, a twitch

of the wrist could take a toll on our carriage of bliss.

The carnage we left, lit from the west
your glistening pupils and rain soaked vest

tinted gold from the sunlight and pink



from the sky. The clouds above part as prepared,
those adulterous pedigrees, tore our peace treaty
your cuffed hand reaches over muffled screeches

that beloved mut in-the-back, most bedraggled
of creatures howls as you pull the hand break
twist the wheel our tires carve etches.

At the end of the structure, we howl with the dog,
and the tyre with all the punctualness rendered

functionless with two deep punctures
hisses and sinks with much of a muchness.