we were out that night in the Holden ute
road through the cane-fields slippery as all get out
down-pour roaring and closing down the viewing distance to a few feet
steam struggling to rise off the tarmac against the force of rain
the toad count rose, all those potential princes, under the wheels,
high beam picking them out, stunned but sanguine, on both sides of the white line
while she gunned the engine, veered and swerved and yahoo-ed
every time we got one.
squashed flat, bloody for a moment but then guts sluiced away as storm-water —
us hanging out the windows to make the body count
sodden, dripping, high on adrenalin and the ‘us’ of it
empty half-bottle of Bundy flat on the floor in the footwell