Rebecca Irvine Bilkau

Observation Of A Child

Emily sprinkles her fingers down the glass
trace-reading the drops on the other side,

‘Look, ’ she says, simple as a god, ‘rain.’
she cups her hand, and when it’s filled

with enough dry air, raises it, toasting.
‘Tomorrow, ’ she says, ‘it’ll be fine.

Somewhere it’s a birthday.’ She sparkles
her fingers against the spectring rain

one more time. ‘I’m one, two, free! ’
She turns, shimmies like a rock pool,

delighted with her first pun, stretches
her arms, palms up-turned, precise now

as a revelation: ‘Look, , look, look,
there’s ...