Dad’s Crayfish Hole

Sleepily, Dad and I trudge through the wiry spinifex

to his cray spot.

Off the rugged West Coast,

washy seas rise like reaching hands,

hiding the buoy wrapped around the rocks.

Dad chucks his stinky green bag,

on the stones shaped like cannonballs.

He is turned away from the wild ocean; he trusts my watch.

The pot rises and falls, rises and falls.

He tugs the rope towards me, saying “Come here.”

I pull the rope, palms burning

like I’m playing a game of tug of war.

Two orange claws jab through the tea tree pots;

bulgy eyes gawk at my dad.

He cuffs the crays as they wrestle around;

their rough carapaces print his hand.

He stuffs them in the bag.

In early morning light,

the two of us weave through the spinifex to our shack.

“Can you hear that?” he pauses, shaking the bag up and down.

“It’s the crays going in my pot!”

Ashlyn Burgess