between the veils

I stand at the edge of another Monday, 

boots crusted with dust from a paddock 

I never meant to cross. 

The sky doesn’t speak- -it broods, 

like it’s waiting for me to say 

the thing I’ve swallowed for years.

There’s a fog settling across the plain. 

Not the cool kind that comforts the gullies,

 but the one that creeps in just before 

the sun decides whether it’ll rise clean 

or hang low in warning. 

I call it tomorrow- though I’ve no idea what it holds.

Behind me, the known stirs 

like a dog in the ute tray, 

restless with truth I’ve tried to keep quiet. 

Memory doesn’t forget how to bark. 

It just waits for silence to grow 

fat enough to bite through.

And isn’t that the way of it? 

The veil ahead is mystery- 

but the veil behind knows my name, 

my mistakes, knows the sound of the door 

I didn’t open and the letter I read twice, then burned.

I keep walking. 

Not because I want to know what comes next, 

but because standing still means listening 

to everything I already understand 

and still can’t say aloud.