KIM WATERS

Rumpus Room

It was an afterthought, an add on,
an interior brick-walled continuum

lined with bull–fighter posters
and a print of Neuschwanstein castle.

In the corner was a ping pong table
with a limp net and saw-dust bats.

I remember the Rastafarian shag-pile
and my younger brother straining

at the pedals of an organ as my mother
tip-toed over the scalextric set with a plate

of toothpick cocktail sausages. I read
Nancy Drewe and the Hidden Staircase

while my cousin shot pellets through
a shelled-out biro at the grown-ups

sitting along a divan, our mothers
drinking shandies, our fathers arguing

about Moffatt and Brock as they wound
their way around Mount Panorama.

That’s how it happens. You pull out a memory.
You’re there but you’re not. No more constant

than the girl who vanishes in dust after
holding up a banner to start the race.

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Kim Waters lives in Melbourne. She is currently studying for an Advanced Diploma of Visual Art. Her poems have appeared in The Australian, Going Down Swinging On-line, The Shanghai Literary Review, La Piccioletta Barca and The Raintown Review. She won the 2020 Woorilla Poetry Prize with her poem ‘The Builder’.