and sweeter still

Laisha Rosnau

The air through apple trees
seeps through the screen into
your bedroom window

and you wake to breeze
bruised with fruit, are drawn
downstairs to the kitchen,

dark with the hum of the fridge.
You cross still warm linoleum
to the door, open and screened

to let cool into the house
and hear the sound of small frogs
alive under the deck.

When the door bangs shut
you jump, stamp your footprints
into dewed grass,

then go down on knees and hands
to crawl under the planks
looking for suddenly silent frogs.

You want to hold one, wet
against your cheek, want
to sleep here, strips of light

etching you later with morning.

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