Sometimes I can see the lake as if 

it was right before my eyes, 

the smell of fresh and wild, 

a foliage of trees, canopies of 

green shade, and 

my legs are on the bed.

The crispness in monkey calls, 

one by one they sit stalling 

on wooden beams 

curious and cunning.

Come morning, come say hi,

hello. Chilly nights, 

warthogs braying into deep

pockets of twilight slumber. 

Sometimes before my eyes,

two to four zebras, galloping 

to the water – a sudden 

thunderous stampede,

or applause, 

I cannot say which.

I cannot say how much 

I have missed by being here. 

I can feel the grass beneath 

my bare wrinkly toes, 

just sitting here. Most days, 

I dream of the lake faraway 

as if, swimming 

before my eyes. 

…

Janice Sim is an emerging writer and sessional academic living on the Gold Coast in Australia. She writes in the spaces between work, cooking and children with poems published in the Fahmidan Journal, Lavender Lime Literary, Spellbinder A Quarterly Literary and Art Magazine and Native Skin Literary Magazine, she tweets @lishen_sim.