Lila by night My daughter lies curled next to me, her warm, softness impressed into my side. Her head rests on my biceps, one thumb jammed into her little mouth, the other thumb and forefinger plucking, plucking, plucking at my elbow. She has developed a predilection for elbow skin. She frantically seeks it out, like an addict – that sweet, bony apex of a crooked arm, so satisfyingly pyramidical, so ripe for the plucking. The neighbour dropped by the other week. I was standing in…Continue Reading “Lila by Night”
An instruction, first spoke, thenceforth shouted, with varying degrees of exasperation. “Samu! Brush your teeth!” My bellow follows the fast-paced clatter of his bare feet pelting down our hallway as he rushes, alas, not to the bathroom, instead performing a sharp, last-minute U-turn to the bedroom. “SAMUUU!” Swift as a cattle dog who knows her foe, I head him off. My hand fits to his flying blonde head like a socket to a ball as I gently, yet firmly, redirect this flying juggernaut towards his…Continue Reading “The brushing of the teeth”
From my bedroom window Our garden nourishes contrasts. Light and shade. Colour and muted earth. A mass of green waste discarded amid the verdant life of the weeds and natives that have serendipitously found home on our patch. Pine needles and broad-leaved beauties shiver in the breeze and everything is alive with movement. A bird cries out, sounding as if it belongs more in the jungle than amid the lawnmower hum of suburbia. Shadows dance on the black lid of the compost bin as the…Continue Reading “Autumn, Wollongong”