Saturday, January 19, 2013

True Story


I bring the baby in, firm fast the door,
settle him with peaches and a show.
Go back to check, and find an empty floor,
peach juice, sunlight, a mumbling tv.
I check the chooks, the trampoline,
his dad in the shed, his sister reclined,
swinging, reading comics on the porch.
‘Bah-Ba?’ I call. ‘Bah-ba’: the faint return.

In the bleached light of a summer day
The colour of gravel and dust, my child
is beyond the gate, across the road, heading
into hectares of bush. Minutes later
and he’d have been a myth, the fairytale
mothers tell to keep themselves awake at night.

2 comments:

  1. that made my heart beat faster

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, what a terrible eternity it must have been until you saw him!!

    ReplyDelete