Heading North
This coach reverberates
and ever, ever, rolls north
with us four and a dozen
back-packed younger souls
in various curls of inertia
as a million, or more,
palm trees are passed
plus the same number
of shacks and scooters,
those and a thousand
roadside spirit houses
are disregarded
in favour of tourism’s
sleep of death.
The highway’s ghost island
has been raised up
for hundreds of metres
in concrete dormers
to reduce the risks
and we pass our final
7-Eleven before the ports.