sometime between 1991 and 1996
a poem for younger readers from my hypertext novel axel-and-alice
Axel runs
I took off my clothes and ran by the river. The mud was easy under my feet and the grass was good.
I stepped through willow curtains and shinned a limb of the river gum way out over the dancing water and dived in.
The cold was good. It pulled me between racing banks.
Then I was cast on shingle and trembled over boulders hot in the sun till I came to a field where a tractor disappeared over the horizon. Soon its sound was gone and I hurried into the new-mown hay.
I rolled and stumbled in its smell and stab and its smooth glue on my skin. Then I stood and the sun burnt me in glances and patches and I burst into flames. I was scarlet and pink and I laughed at the indigo blue above and yelled at the clouds that sang like barrels and bales in the barn of the sky.
And the eye of the sun was a hole into heaven and I wanted to fly.
Then I remembered the car and the kids and the barbecue, the dog and the bat and the ball.
I remembered the sunscreen, the coke and the warnings, the cousin who wouldn’t let go, the arguments, the shouts and the moods and the melted icecream.
I remembered the radio songs of the seventies over and over again.
I remembered my allergies and chores and homework and burnt toast for breakfast and the neighbour’s snotty baby yelling in its bouncinette and the kids in the pool next door screaming at each other and the dog barking and barking and the smell of diesel exhaust on Uncle Jack’s boat and the blood and the guts and the fish heads on the deck.
And I remembered a Christmas when Dad didn’t come home and Mum was bright as holly. She tinkled like tinsel and held me too tight and we felt like Hansel and Gretel lost in the woods even though the computer games and plastic toys were stuffed into stockings like rocks in a crocodile’s gut.
So I swore and I cried and I tore at the grass and I dug the earth with my fingers and bit the dirt that tasted like death and I pissed on the paddock and I shouted abuse at the farmer who cut the grass that should hide me forever while the wind dreamt over it and I stumbled through stubble and stubbed toes on stones that stood in the way and I struggled through thorns and pushed to the water and forced my way beside it through bracken and blackberry and cow dung and sudden twittering birds till streaked and desperate I came to the pile of my clothes where I’d started.
I bathed in the river and dried on its bank and pulled on my T-shirt and jeans and tiptoed back to the car park where emergency teams and rescuers would be busy with vehicles and radios and maps.
But the car park had only one car in it, ours.
And the brother and sister and cousin played quietly and the mum and the dad drank beer from a can and muttered soft words in the afternoon air and in slow motion they turned when I sat on the seat and they said something like ‘Have a nice walk?’ and then Mum kissed me light on the cheek and gave me the last chocolate biscuit and laughed at the dog which was covered in buzzies and Dad said, ‘I suppose it’s time to get going.’
And we did.