Back Then

It reminds me of a summer day in June.
Cats caterwauling, one ginger-striped alighting a rooftop
walking the spine I thought far too high.
The bees, hungry for the watermelon, swarm the flesh-bit pairing knife.
Mother swats them away with a wooden spatula as we giggle behind
sticky gun-shot fingers.

Dogs in the yard play finicky with their shadows.
The son next door swaddled in a rough pink towel after the water fight.
That time that we both posed for a photograph,
balloons in each hand.
When a bird flew in through the French doors, quick to recognise its mistake;
like a businessman caught in a lift in the depths of winter,
I’ve never seen a decision to leave made that quick.
The biggest dragonfly we’d ever seen;
we screamed together, swatting with a newspaper, magazines,
and sweating hands,
then fell laughing on all fours after it was gone.

© Eve Redwater 2012