the sky below our feet (or how to find a lost car)

You can’t remember where you parked the car.

We fashion a replica out of pizza dough

paint it with the appropriate food colouring

make tyres from olives (more salt equals better grip)

car doors from capsicum.

tiny versions of ourselves from goats cheese.

I cup my hands to form an oven

using warm thoughts for fuel

sprung from the knowledge this will be the tastiest car ever!

A bell goes off behind your ear to tell us

our pizza car is ready.

I unfold my hands.

We smile.

Look how proud we are!

We carry our pizza car aloft down Brunswick St.

“Have you seen this car?” we ask.

“It looks just like this,” you say. “Except it’s bigger and less tasty.”

They shake their heads in a negative fashion and turn ravenous eyes until we fear for our pizza car.

We turn to flee, as we do stars start falling from your sleeves.

Your jacket is filling up with stars.

They tickle.

You giggle and say “this usually only happens when I dream.”

Stars are dripping from your sleeves like water.

They gather in a pool at our feet. They cover the street until suddenly

the ground has become the sky.

We’re well dressed satellites

turning the heads of astronauts.

From up here we can see millions of cars.

But which one is yours?

Spinning around the earth is harder than it looks.

We stop to rest in one of one hundred rotundas specially constructed for Angels on earth patrol.

We gaze hungrily at our pizza car in the palm of your hand.

But we’re on a mission!

“Maybe you should retrace your steps?” I say.

And there are your steps falling from your feet, floating beneath us all the way back to earth.

We follow your steps, until there are more steps than stars and there’s your car, exactly where you left it.

On the drive home the pizza tastes… delicious.

for Evelyn