34-37 Degrees South - 2023

Language swap
Stella Hatzis
A sunny day in a week of autumn chill. “I was too sick to cook,” she
apologises, “and I didn’t get to study any Greek.” She leans over the
picnic basket, bumping her straw hat into mine, and produces a bottle.
“I brought milk for... Oh, no.” “For the tea?” “I forgot the tea.”
bright clouds
competing
with white linen
Cake crumbs scatter, shaken off loose sheets of Spanish vocab. The air
smells of orange. “Will you be wanting this back?” I follow her pointing
hand to the cream cheese, freckled with ants in a sticky picnic of
their own. She studies my face. “Want me to teach you how to say
‘damn ants’?”
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