by Cecilia Xu

---

She is a scone, slow-baked
and piping hot,
rich, sweet aromas rising
around my shoes and covering them
with a delicate crust
of cinnamon dust.

Above, there hangs an orange globe
melting stones into syrup
that settles on the skin.
Blow flies perch on shoulders
and noses, savouring
a taste of the sun.

The afternoon stretches wide,
broken by fragrant scatterings
of rain that turn the earth
to red honey. Little corellas
quarrelling in the grass
take to the trees in a hurry.

On the ground, families sit
in circles under maple trees.
They talk of history;
what has been consumed.
They touch their palms together,
brush their fingers over the soil
and hunger for the fruits of the land.

---

Cecilia Xu is a Chinese-Kiwi doctor and poet living in Melbourne. She has published over 30 poems and essays, with work appearing in journals such as the New Zealand Poetry Society Anthology, Signals and Verge. When she’s not writing she can be found playing music and petting other people’s dogs.