I did one last load of washing
after the sun went down tonight,
creekwater pale in the antelight,
banjo frogs bong bong bonging beneath the
reeds at the bottom of the garden.
And while I was unpegging I found
a leaf inside a fitted sheet,
dry from the night warm, all dry and all thick,
settling on the verandah
with next door’s drumbeat, while
all rising, bright and hazy
the round full moon.
Agitated, I pull out
a scrap of paper and scribble of
the leaf with its slightly darker stripes lying
between the dark green cotton swathes, hiding,
like the Tasmanian tiger, hiding
like the fragility of summer night, hiding
like a fragment of the last lithe
slip of daylight
hiding inside a fitted sheet.
© 2011 rosie schriever
