Australia

Steady driver, left-hand lane:
for three months we have been unfurling wings,
finding new coordinates,
trying not to mind missing midwest mornings in the snow.

She is the familiar voice
when Orion falls upside down
and the words of strangers burr and buckle,
sprawl and crackle at these new latitudes.

Finally we fold the maps away and drive,
missing turns, tongues burned
on morning diesel made hot to beat the rain.
Knees bent we dream against the dash,
second gear leaning up a hill,
pushing the pacific rim with the radio on scan:
bleary songs at the edge of the world.

One night beneath the gum trees
she shows the Magellan cloud
that white freckle just beyond the milky way:
she is the closest solar system to where I stand.
The southern sun browns constellations on our shoulders
as if somehow
we might learn to navigate our way back home.