Viaticum

When one arrives at the pearl-grey galvanised gates

it falls to Pete to administer the last rites:

decipher the logbook, drain the tank and radiator,

disconnect the battery, the starter motor, the alternator,

take off the fuel pump, trace the registration plate

and enter it under ‘currently breaking’ on the website.

Each carcass offers up its various hurts: a cracked block,

broken axle or drive shaft, a rusted-out gear box,

evidence of rollovers, jack-knifings, cab fires,

a choked slurry guzzler, a one-armed sprayer.

Diggers are propped on the knuckles of their scoops, or flat out,

their toothless buckets savouring a last mouthful of dirt.

In clean overalls, Pete checks his inventory,

lays them out and anoints each one with WD40.

Once a year Sean the Scrap swings by with his truck

to swap gossip with the blokes in the office out back

and drag out what remains after the necessary cannibalism

and take the relics to Tiverton for the final weighing in.