She Has Seen Summers

 

It was the fire of that summer.

The one that cracked the concrete;

splitting the grey roots of the weatherboard house.

She had watched the dogs bark themselves sick

as their collars cooked their necks. Too hot

to help or touch, and the hum

of harvest drying in the heat.

 

Now, steam drips down her face as she pours

her fingers into cooking

fruit - or what is left -

stewing, bottling, baking apples

and feeding the grandkids stories

of the drought of '89 and the sun that lived

 

on the ground and never left.

The same sun is stuck

in this afternoon's sky.

She hadn't seen it since

not that bright, nor thirsty.

 

Once, fat mounds of apples rolled to her feet

in the dust, but that summer

the small clumps had clung to the trees.

Maybe they knew the rain wouldn't come.

This year, the apples are like shrivelled walnuts,

small knots of red flesh gone inside.

 

Her hair hangs limp.

The pot is boiling over but she is watching

the steam and how it rises like smoke,

and the house

and her children coughing together,

remembering the yobbo who turned up

 

on the back step to save them just in time.

She watches the horizon for splinters of burning grass.

There is a bucket of water nearby, just in case, just in case.

 

First Runner-up (Secondary)

Sonya Clark

Karamu High School

Hastings

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