Stone ruins on the Ghan kindle
a dream of being the Kidman or Cusack
scanning the flat for a castle, some green
We fossick for nails find a bean tin rusted
through Gibber stone to fit a young man’s
hand a thousand years ago Silica smooth,
tricky shimmers in the sand scape
big enough to shock a skink into the next life
In the cemetery cameleers face east
next to the oasis for new nomads
where polished Jayco caravans
boast hot and cold running water
Facing west the shell of a Holden
nudges the corrugated lean of a water tank
Pale weeds hide and seek where wheels
once turned to Lake Eyre in the rain
for a picnic or a stolen kiss
We snap the blue through a window
with no glass, frame of a shifting
canvas In a wide, sharp sky there’s
the melancholy hush Light breeze blows
spinifex through the bones of this town
First published in The Australian Poetry Journal 2012
Julie Maclean 