North-west Tasmania, rain like grief, air static,
the Queenstown mining area stark comparison
with the sauced-up colonial cottages we rented
down south where escaped convicts starved, lost,
trivial distances infinite, beyond the atlas.
This sombre outpost drips, black as shell holes.

Runnels of muddied water converge, stream with us,
into the drenched valley, a winding descent
swallowed by a fine mist, wipers on slow now.
Leafless, mid-afternoon, muffled, closed.
I sniff my sleeve, smell mould, or imagine so.
Then a caravan park, no sign of life, just Vacancy.
I know the shelter I want, in the shadows
at the petrified forest's edge, crows on its roof.

Sunk in a musty pillow, I bookmark Richard Flanagan,
wipe condensation from the cobwebbed window.
Moonscape with trees, ground cover sodden brush,
a place where nocturnal animals might vanish.

We calculate how long the money should last.
Does the thylacine survive these haunted roads?
Coffee on a yellowed stove; we could lie low here.
I ponder death by hanging, the malignant past.