Her next door neighbour stops taking his tractor to collect bogged tourists.
Down at the café, his wife tells her sister his back just wasn’t up to it,
but he tells his wife how in dreams he sees himself driving over something half-hidden
and the tractor is left on the curb to rust.

For six-months someone has seen her someplace else on the Highway,
from Geraldton to Jurien to Green Point to Kataby to Lancelin to Yanchep to Wannerroo to Perth.

Nearby, on the New Road, the sand-dunes move closer
and recede again.

The Blokes drive around the roads with their roo-guns in back
and the           You Are Now Leaving …………
has to be replaced four times,
the spent bullets clumping together with the emu droppings.

Walking back from the Scout Hall towards the ocean,
it is possible to mistake the corrugated iron horse with his wise-man
for both a savior and a thief.

In the newly released parcel of land out by the windfarm,
the Mayor of Dandaragan Shire names a suburb after her.

This is progress.

Out-of-towners, city-folk, sea-changers move in, smooth the hills and build
variations of the same seaside, each with a different painting
of sand above an overgrown cottage-rose couch.

And by the time her parents are buried
that summer is remembered as the one
when fisheries screwed us on the catch,
when the skippers instructed the deckies to throw back,
when the ocean floor crawled with whites
and five-legged kings even a child could catch.