Design by Marc Lebon

Crickets echo in the yard,

a drowsy sun slips back to earth.

Eucalyptuses dance for the new moon,

swaying in shivered union.

The day is done.

Find me here,

by a shadowed stovetop,

listening for the song

of the front gate.

Forget the noise,

Forget the grit,

the mess,

let the soap suds slide down

two spoons kissing in the sink.

I’ll draw the curtains closed,

I’ll tug the sheets over our heads

and collapse;

a sun sunk back to earth,

in soft surrender.

Brush your teeth beside me,

shoulder to shoulder,

two kids giggling in the mirror

in old pyjamas and simple joy.

Tell me of the boy riding his bike in the park:

his small legs pedalling madly, his electric grin.

Tell me about the crook of the white gum on the corner,

where two kookaburras have carved a home.

Tell me about the orange tree,

weeping over the neighbour’s fence

and into the bluestone alley,

just as it always does at this time of spring.

Split the stolen fruit into two gaping halves,

let it kiss both our palms, sticky and sweet.

When we are apart, I will often look towards the doorway,

and imagine your figure in the frame,

in all of your tenderness and all of your heart,

and I am reminded of how it all felt.

That candle winking in the dark:

something to tend to and something to hold,

both our hands whispering the edges of new love.

When I was younger, at the end of the day, my best friend and I would get off the school bus at the same stop and run as fast as we could all the way down the hill, from the bus stop to the cliff face at the furthest point of our beach, and try to look for magic there, upending seashells and squealing into the salty mouth of this great big sandstone cave all afternoon. We were allowed to play there for hours if only we remembered that, when it got dark enough that the streetlights began to flicker on, we would trapse back along the beach and up the hill, sandy and exhausted, all the way back home.