The Left Spring’s Soft
Rusted D-shackles in the footwell,
a flattened box of Winfield Red.
Twenty years on the same clay,
hands turn the ute on muscle alone.
His boy at the ramp, his whole life
packed into six boxes and a garbage bag,
a polo shirt buttoned where a flannel should be,
looking at the hills, his watch.
Anywhere but the house.
Ute’s running rough.
Needs a clean out.
The kettle was still whistling
when she carried her life out to the taxi.
He’d gone down to the woolshed instead.
oiled the handpieces till his hands stopped shaking.
Rain past Taihape,
yellow streaks smeared across the glass,
wipers dragging a dry, rhythmic scrape.
Still got the house in Hamilton?
Sold it. Nothing there for me anyway.
Meat pies from the Gull station,
pastry flaking into the grease on his trousers,
two cans of V rolling against the floorboards
every time the ute took a corner.
The kauri chest—still got it?
In the back shed. Why?
Mum said you’d burn it before you’d let her take it.
Wellington,
some concrete flat, gray fence,
a rusty trampoline next door,
someone else’s vape smoke drifting over,
One can cracked open in an empty kitchen,
the tab stinging his thumb.
How’s the missus settling in?
Dad.
He turns the can in his hand,
Working up to something else.
Sorry. Slip of the tongue.
How’s he, then?
Good. Busy with his own move too.
Right.
Good.
He drains the can, sets it by the door.
Don’t overload the trailer.
The left spring’s soft.
No horn on the way out.
Window cracked a finger’s width for the smoke to bleed out,
but the truth stays buckled in the passenger seat.
In the trailing lights, the dark rides heavy in the tray
like a small boy waiting for a destination,
a passenger he can’t drop off
no matter how many times he checks the tie-downs.
Bruised grey at his own gate.
Not the house. The bottom paddock,
the twin ewes due.
The first one: black-faced, dead in the frost,
its mother five yards off, looking for sweet grass.
He doesn’t curse.
He picks up the shovel
and chops into the frozen clay,
burying the lamb early.
Xavier Tapsell
Year 13
Tauranga Boys’ College
