Old Taupō Road

Brake for the man

driving the steamroller.

Watch the man

turn and quickly

drive the steamroller

onto its trailer,

the gigantic wheel

in perfect alignment

with its bed.

Stop and watch

the new calves

in their pasture.

Stop and watch

the new calves

fucking in their pasture.

One calf hitches onto

the back of another calf

and rides it

around the pasture.

A bird flies

under the car.

Watch the bird

in the rear view mirror

coming out the other side,

crumpling onto the median.

Glass Beach

On the other side of the hill

on the other side of the stars

there is a beach as

smooth as a windowpane.

Some of it is colored

red and yellow and green,

swirled bright or dripped

thick as from a brush.

Some of it is colorless.

Here, you can see

down beneath the glass –

the crust, the mantle, the core.

We stand at the edge and look in,

our bodies too dense to touch it.

Flies land deftly on its surface,

their thin legs vibrating gently.

The waves that lap at the beach

make tiny cuts that catch the fish

and turn them into scaled ribbons

before they’re pulled back out.

No one knows how far the glass goes, under the water.

Divers have seen bright patches of lava five kilometers out.

After that, everything goes dark

even the sea.

Carolyn DeCarlo

Carolyn DeCarlo is an American writer living in Wellington, New Zealand. She is the author of one chapbook, Strawberry Hill (Pangur Ban Party 2013), and co-author of two chapbooks, Twilight Zone (NAP 2013) and Bound: An Ode to Falling in Love (Compound Press 2014), with Jackson Nieuwland. Her poetry and fiction have been published by or are forthcoming from LEFT, Zoomoozophone Review, Minarets, Illuminati Girl Gang, Shabby Doll House, West Wind Review, The Scrambler, and Everyday Genius. You can find her @carodecarlo.