A plastic bag with a small fish inside
thrashes around on the wet pontoon.
A small girl steps gingerly up to it. . .
A man yel1s at a yellow-haired boy:
'If you'd listened to me in the first place
we wouldn't have all this trouble!'
(holding up the boy's tangled line).
'At The End of the Kiwifruit Season'
My tidy mother with her bundle of wool
and my scratchy father with his crazy shingles
and swollen eyes
have shot off to Australia
to warm their bellies in Brisbane's sun.
Omokoroa has no international airport,
but this does not interfere
with their plans:
at the end of the kiwifruit season
flightless birds fill the skies.
Warning to Southern Lovers
Please take extreme care –
there may be black ice
between the bedsheets.
