Today I spent seven hours in a suburban shopping mall
with three
children, forty four degrees outside
the last day of a
week long heatwave we had lunch in the foodcourt
and I settled my
three kids at a table with chicken and chips
and walked to
another shop to buy coffee and a salad
well the three
year old walked around the tables saying
‘have you seen my
mother she went shopping and she disappeared’
and the ten year
old followed behind and explained
that I was just
over there, and grandmothers frowned and smiled
and it’s a wonder
no one called the police even though really
the kids were
quite safe it was just a bit crowded and I didn’t
notice the three
year old slide down from his seat
because I was
watching my coffee being made
then we were sitting and eating and the three
year old ran off to
play at the jungle
gym and one girl ran
off to see what movies were on
and the other went to spend her
pocket money at Smiggle
I was alone
but pulled apart in three directions
then a lady asked
for my table and I felt like I was giving up something important,
but I
couldn’t say no, so I bussed my own crockery,
tipping the last
of my wilting salad into the bin and stood in the middle
of nowhere, checking
weather apps on my phone, looking at the fires
near home and
waiting for them all to come back to me
there was a bird
trapped in the food court, fluttering into the walls,
also seeking shelter
from the heat, the cleaner rang some kind of central office
and asked if
there was a protocol for birds and I was concerned to overhear
there’s not and I
thought here I am in a place between living and death,
a holding
pattern, a neutral existence, and I will transcend or descend
outside the city holds the heat, distant, white, shimmering
