it seems forever
the wait

as a young man

for her
to be side chic
in your car

before stories
about
reaching the pedals

or stalling the getaway
while clumsily gear changing

finds eyes above the steering wheel
and the safe beginning to your lifetime road trip.

Geoffrey Aitken writes in Adelaide, on unceded Kaurna land as an awarded poet whose industrial minimalism communicates his ‘lived experience’ for publishers both locally [AUS] and internationally [UK, US, CAN, Fr & CN]. Recently, ‘Sparks of Calliope’ [UK], ‘The Closed Eye Open’, [US]; ‘Oxygen’ and ‘unusual work’ [AUS]. He was nominated for the annual Best of the Net anthology in 2022.