Bittersweet Nectar
Summer never ended, when I couldn't tie my shoelaces and my parents had to carry me across blistering asphalt.
Summer never ended, when I couldn't reach the hanging nectarines that blushed and teased, my Nan would pluck the juiciest ones.
My cousins sat with flushed, sun-kissed faces, covered in flowing nectar that dripped and dripped down our chins onto each others hand me downs.
Our toothy grins mirrored in one another, little giggles echoed and shrieks rippled around the yard, eagerly we slid across the wet tarp.
Our bodies littered crisp white sand as another day of eternal sunshine ensued. When it was time to go back to school our faces scattered with freckles, mosaics of a summer well spent.
Now the leaves almost finished falling, crispening at the edges, and covering the ground with layers of kindling.
I carry my daughter across the asphalt, but it melts the rubber of my shoes.
I hand my daughter a pale nectarine in the air-conditioned store, we can't sit outside today.
My daughter splashes in the warm rock pools alone, she plays on a beach that never existed when I was a child, she slides down worn dunes that I have not known.
My daughter sits inside, laying on the floor with her classmates, windows drawn shut, shoes and socks abandoned, her only relief is a wet cotton rag covering her neck. She closes her eyes; she hears the ferocious hot breeze rustling through gum trees she can't see.
Now the dust swarms and sweeps the land, fragmented glass turns to sand while the polka dot polyester beach bag that went out of fashion last year sits untouched.
The sand cascades down and down, the nectarines rot.
I tell myself that summer won't last forever.
