The boxes were still flat, Bought in bulk, Tape dispenser, labels, a fine fat marker shiny and new,

Repairs that had been untouched for years were suddenly finished, New paint, Fixed chips, Replaced appliances,

He’s done this thirty-six times, Shuffled from place to place like a rag, She’s never blown in the wind, Settled like and old mop left in the corner of the laundry,

Ten years of memories and dust to be packed away, Ten minutes down the road but a lifetime to go, Pack the first box, It was all becoming real.

I wasn’t looking for love, and I wasn’t looking left either. Her van smacked right into me as I was crossing the street on my bicycle on the way home one drizzly Tuesday evening. Thankfully, as I would later discover, she’s Melbourne’s slowest driver and the owner of one of the city’s oldest vans.

I looked up at her from the flat of my back on the bitumen as she leant over me, with the old VB billboard lit up behind her like a halo.

“Oh my fucking god, I am so sorry,” she drawled. The cigarette she’d been smoking when she hit me was still lit, and I could smell the tobacco on her breath with every word.

“Can you stand up? Chuck your bike in the van and I’ll get you home. I think I dinged up your wheel sorry mate.”

I lay on my back, the wind completely knocked out of me, trying desperately to inhale. I knew she was the on.

She loved to stand on the rocks and stare right down into the water. That was her favourite thing about the place; the water was always so clear. She could see the riverbed way down beneath. Sometimes she would see see a pair of claws, a murray cray walking backwards along the bottom, or bubbles from an eastern long neck turtle. The river was snow melt at some point far away and never dried up, even during the hottest, driest summers, so they’d pack their bags and drive the long dusty road for a swim and a picnic. She sunned herself on the hot rocks like a lizard until she was so hot she just had to jump into the icy water. She could see the bottom but she didn’t touch it.