Kambalda Crescent

At 101 Kambalda Crescent, summer started in cicadas,

their rasp cancelling conversation in the scribbly gum.

We worried Granny’s back-gate lock, 

wriggling until the bolt clicked free, 

spokes rattling down the dirt track to Champion’s Dam, 

where we threw ourselves in silt-brown water, 

surfacing loud, slick-haired, loose. 

Plums let go in the heat, soft knocks in the grass,

skins splitting at the seam, stones clicking against teeth, 

juice tacky at our wrists. 

Old Major Mitchell dismantled crab apples overhead, 

pitching pieces beside our bare feet. 

From Umpa’s shed, the drop saw rose to a whine, 

opening a kerf through Camphor laurel.

Mallet on chisel, dry and metrical, 

each knock following what the grain allowed. 

Next door, the mower droned over dun grass;

The ice-cream van chimed somewhere round the crescent.

Before I needed street names, 

I knew it by ear.