Fritz

We would stop and he would ask the farmers if we could camp.
Then the children would be sent to collect wood.
We set small fires for the cooking
and a larger communal one
that the adults would retire to in the darkness,
whispering circular riddles to us
that we could not replicate.
I had been assigned James
who was younger
with the bowl-cut of a prince.
When he did something particularly brave or selfless,
even in play,
I felt the first tinges of maternal satisfaction,
standing back with my hands on my hips,
shading my eyes
and saying, yes, that is good.
Yet I had not graduated.
I was somewhere in between
my charge and the fire,
fearing the jump.

Fritz sewed us into the earth in rows
and we lay like runs of seeds
in the leaf of the Judas tree.
A large tarp was placed on the ground
then all of us in our sleeping bags
and then another tarp on top.
We woke to bird calls and wood smoke,
wallabies grazing at the edge of the glade.
Too soon it would be time to move on
and sit on the wheel humps
inside the old red postal van,
all banged up together and complaining.