(for Tom)
his charts are for escaping
burned out drug days tripping
at eighty clicks an hour, until
the crash and flames and now
his good arm pushes landscapes
onto canvas his brush the speeding
fast into colourful curves and only held in
by skin meridian even though whittled
down to bone with scars the shade of sepia
written on his body the way tree trunks
close around their wounds and his spruce tops
are bristles soaked in green painting up the sky
his spared body parts are comets shooting off
in all directions there’s no going back
from all that forward motion
the best times will divide the journey
right down the middle
Shellie Troy Anderson 