Campsite

 

Campsite

With a line from George Szirtes

You wake to car sounds, radios, the cold sunlight, little skulls
of mushroom moving in the wind. You are jigsawed to the ground.

The children play a game of hide-and-seek. Are these earthworms
hiking up for air? You feel them on your back. Some odd,

earthly spa. You stretch, flat as a lotus pad on the water. Someone
is with the children. Your husband, with a timer, watching the game?

A langur looking for its casuarina tree? They're safe. You can sink
in further, where the water draws out your bones, and your face

turns nude. The eucalypti skyscrape. You watch their tops,
their long legs. Their long tresses. And you wake to bonfire,

guitar notes, moonlit shapes, the little skulls hiding, seeking.