Poems by Michael Hall

We ride, double
down the street,
lean back, lift—
almost pull a wheelie.

Only the dairy open.
A logging truck blasts through,
rattling the windows
of Harry’s Homekill:

too fast.
Misty rain, the old railway
bridge—
the sound of

piss
on the river.
A fence post
floats by.

At night,
the petrol station
glows;
the kaeaway sign

is a sign.
At school we factorise
and expand, learn
that landscapes keep

changing.
Man, I say, one day,
I’m gonna buy
a brand-new car

and drive the hell far
away as I can.
A used car would do,
she says,

get you just as far.
Me, she says,
I want to
be in a band.

You look like
a drowned dog,
my dad says,
barely turning

when I get back in,
in that strange time
between adolescence
and the evening.