Visiting the Sick

We head north in a great March,
Travellers in a Coke can,
Leaning forward on the Kilmog,
Reclining on the plain,
Gauging how far?
How far now?
How far again.

I tell of yesteryear’s cars:
The Mirage and the Gemini,
The Starlet with sheep damage.
Heavy, bronze and frosted,
Ancestral vehicles:
Our lineage
In the garage.

Why are cars stellar, cosmic,
But shuttles named for the gods?
Launched into a tomorrow
Of magic cures and instapots,
Spiritual healing
Or toilet cleaning,
Python vs Apollo.

In those funeral songs,
‘Into the Mystic’, ‘Lamb of God’,
‘Keep Left on State Highway One’,
Our lost estate in dirges,
Something emerges:
An apparition—
Mum riding shotgun.

I ask: Are these last days
The most recent or the final?
Is what’s next for real or doctrinal?
Ought I anchoress?
Estne eternal rest?
I try it on for size.
We stop for pies.

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Ann Hassan lives in Dunedin and works for the Catholic periodical Tui Motu. She is the author of a monograph on the poet Geoffrey Hill, Annotations to Geoffrey Hill’s ‘Speech! Speech!’