#55 Kevin Brophy 'Sleeping crocodiles'

Today the playground crocodile caught

Two children too slow on the flying fox.

A sleepy frog was chased out of the grass

And under the wheel of a moving bin.

And one girl found a sleeping finch

And carried it, limp, to her teacher.

I sat with a child and read of a hungry caterpillar

Who ate himself into his own sleeping death.

It seemed a beautiful thing in the book.

‘Wings’ the child said to me at the end of it.

It’s important the crocodile is asleep when a child

Launches herself out on the flying fox of her life.

It’s important each one gets a turn in hope, in fright

At slipping past the waking crocodile’s clumsy bite.