by KIM WATERS
As the children space-time frisbees on the oval
and he stands, a bare-legged blacksmith
in a devil’s apron, brandishing tongs,
she flails a tartan-tasselled travelling rug,
stained with BBQ sauce and bindi eyes,
over the bumpy ground. To the sound
of an unoiled swing, roiling back and forth,
she lays out a circle of corrugated plates,
and a leaning tower of sandwich loaf.
Waiting for the meat to cook, she removes
her sandals and stares down at her knees
rutted with grass blades as her youngest son
flops onto her lap and holding his hand over
her mouth refuses to let her speak. Then
the blacksmith appears with a bottle of wine,
but the opener’s missing so they make do
with water from a rusty tap instead. Leaning
back on her elbows, she watches a jet stream
spell out someone’s dopey name in the sky
and recalls when it was just the two of them,
escaping into the bush, wrapped in the same
tartan rug like caterpillars in chrysalis.