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Ends Of Transportation

Matt Harris

The laundered rags
outside the mechanics workshop
strung up like Tibetian prayer-flags
Would anyone think so?
Of course anyone would
— there are certain strands of likeness,
common threads, running between the monks robes
and the overalls of the mechanic:
It's just as hard to interrupt either man when there he is,
head down humming to himself working out the nuts and bolts of transience

Are there sufficient connections
to get us from here to the next place?
Somebody, standing outside the human sciences building,
said: "We're clotheslines, and every
experience we have in life is pegged to the line."
I didn't understand,
but nodded, like a toi-toi
in the wind
"The more years behind you
the more dirty washing you have on the line,
the harder it all gets to sort out," they said.
Again, nodded.

Reticence is often misconstrued
as a kind of inner death
It's rarely understood,
except by sensitive tractor drivers,
going 30kph down the highway on
Friday afternoon of Labour weekend.
They know the unseen force of a row of cars,
(the trailer surrendering a piece of white cloth)
They know what it means to pull over and let the others keep going…