Molten Summer Reverie
Melissa Coffey
Hot colours of molten summer run together like no other season in recollection. Revolving days like childhood bicycle wheels—ghosted frames worn out by endless mid-afternoon adventures, buried in nostalgia’s waterholes where you swam, diving deep in dappled shadows; buried in the undergrowth of gullies you flew down on dusty tracks, your brother always in front.
Summers scraped your knees and you bore pink scab badges bravely. Summers scratched your legs in the overgrown blade grass of the vacant allotment with the wild mango tree. Summers dripped down wrists and left the burn of sap around your mouth if you forgot to wash your face.
Summer scorched your feet to the rare pink of barbecued steaks on an island holiday when you jumped into a pile of pure white sand which wasn’t sand, but still-smouldering ash in a fire-pit. That summer was a flare of pain into a blue sky scream—third-degree burns on your soles and the only solace the cool of hotel pool. Your father dropped you in, like an ice cube in lemonade, swirling you gently.
Bandaged on a tourist bus, you saw giant iguanas basking on tree trunks.
Don’t stand still for too long in the bush, or they’ll mistake you for a tree and run right up you.
Locals laughing into their beers, as sobered, we left the pub.
Summers were the deep green stillness of rainforest walks, standing awed under dripping tree-ferns and trees so old you wondered if they remembered dinosaurs. You put your hand upon their trunks to feel their ancient heartbeats. Summers were the crane of neck to the calls of whip birds echoing through distant treetops— afterwards, you didn’t want to go home to sleep under the blandness of finite ceilings, but imagined running away to live beneath a soaring leaf-canopy.
Summers were sailing on your father’s yacht, salt-spray stinging eyes, the thrill of dive and rise of the hull. Sails flapping like wings of a giant seagull above your head, and there below the waves, quiet parades of glimmering fish, drifting over the depths of your unfathomable future. Summers were swimming on beaches with names made for tourist brochures—Palm Cove, Honeymoon Bay, Springs Beach, Daydream Island—names that taste in your mouth now like vanilla ice-cream drips from a cone mingled with sunscreen licked off your hand. Summers stretched like banks of sun-gilded dunes, rippled like sea-grass in coastal winds.
Summers were sucking lollies while reading books in the back seat of interminable car trips, even though doing both could make you sick. Summers were plaid picnic blankets that made the underside of sunburnt legs itchy and the random staccato rhythms of slapping mosquitos. Summers were always arriving home after dark, the row of sandy thongs on the front doorstep, beach towels on the line and grilled fish and salad on the back patio.
Later, summers were missing your mother, and seeing her face in white clouds above beaches where you once sunbathed together—bright clouds in skies so blue they made you cry.
Melissa Coffey is an Australian published writer, poet and editor, residing in Melbourne. She holds a BA (Hons) in Theatre Studies and engages strongly with themes of the Feminine. Her short stories and poetry are published (sometimes incognito) in international and Australian anthologies (The Mammoth Book series, Cleis Press, Stringybark Stories) and literary journals (The Ekphrastic Review, Writing in a Woman’s Voice, Not Very Quiet, Illura Press). She has work forthcoming in The Last Girls Club. Melissa is currently seeking publication for her debut chapbook. She publishes poetry writing craft and poetry articles at: https://medium.com/@Melissa_Coffey Find her on Twitter @CuriousSeeds.