Not to be

His quad bike overturns in the creek. Yesterday or tomorrow

the kelpie would have gone for help, but today, today

she is at the vet, today there is no take-back, no near-miss

tall-story germ, only pinned arms and the chassis sinking in slimy willow-muck

and thousands of cold brown gallons against his lungs.

A bloody-minded magpie swoops the kids two paddocks over;

they lie down and kick out at it, legs in the air, backs riding a sea of ploughed clods,

just as he’d showed them, laughing and swearing the spring air blue. His slowing thoughts of them:

Cheeky buggers. Why can’t we go at all our troubles like that, eh? - fuck them off

with a swift kick. Not bloody fair. You and your Mum will have the insurance, but.

A new silence spreads by the water, ready to fill with questions, with words

like misadventure, with deep green mud opposing all dredging.

In the end the left-behind can know nothing cleanly, and all he knew

is what he wanted for them, and what he didn’t want.

Melinda Smith