Sea Krait, Broome

How slow an approach when viewed

from a distance. How more likely

the encounter if the ground is clear

A voice saying always “go ahead”

calls it freedom

Above the 27th parallel is the heat

I know as home, in my bones always

untouched by city’s cool centrifuge

that refracts a kind of light

which bursts and vanishes on the spot

Heading North, I escape the fray

Green hem of the outskirts, roadside

façade of forest, hiding a casement

of burnt earth, silent as myself

Outside, a poet ghosts a window

Writing back into life his night

parrots. I drive lines from water

to water, guzzle roadhouse coffee

Warming up, there is a conflict

of appetite, a suburban tree, black

with cockatoos shucking almonds

A dolphin trapped in a rock pool

Cane toads storming the Kimberley

in wet, find it planted with sugar

An olive python curled under a van

belly beaded with feral kittens

After three days of seated travel

I lunge from the car, sprint the length

of jetty, deaf to the man screaming

warning. Only in midair do I look

down to the sea, the time it takes

to panic

Two yellow-and-black krait, vivid

bandwidth of danger, turning on

the turquoise surface, and all

I can do, is fall