Rain and Blood

Bat eats the fruit,

seeds drop to the ground,

rain grows the seeds

and pools in buttress roots

to make a bed for mozzies to breed.

Mozzie sucks my blood

and is swallowed by the frog

who spawns in the pond

among the fish and eels;

her tadpoles grow up fast and strong.

Magpie drinks the water

and carries some froglets away –

snacks for her baby birds –

then the snake robs her nest

and I slide into the earth.

Mykaela Saunders is a Koori and Lebanese writer, teacher and community researcher who belongs to the Tweed Goori community. Mykaela is editor of This All Come Back Now: An anthology of First Nations speculative fiction (UQP, 2022).

This poem appears in Openbook spring 2022.