Bat eats the fruit,
seeds drop to the ground,
rain grows the seeds
and pools in buttress roots
to make a bed for mozzies to breed.
Mozzie sucks my blood
and is swallowed by the frog
who spawns in the pond
among the fish and eels;
her tadpoles grow up fast and strong.
Magpie drinks the water
and carries some froglets away –
snacks for her baby birds –
then the snake robs her nest
and I slide into the earth.
Mykaela Saunders is a Koori and Lebanese writer, teacher and community researcher who belongs to the Tweed Goori community. Mykaela is editor of This All Come Back Now: An anthology of First Nations speculative fiction (UQP, 2022).
This poem appears in Openbook spring 2022.
