Katipō

Words by Sarah Caroline Bell

It took us a long time  

to make a campfire that night. 

Gotta get driftwood, you said. 

Pick it up carefully, you said. 

We trusted you because you knew.  

You came here every summer as a kid. Round, leggy, black with a red danger stripe. Your nan got bitten while collecting  driftwood here, ae. Didn’t kill her, āe.  Got her good. Right on the index finger. But that story wasn’t as good as the one about that time she dropped her sausage straight into the fire. How she fished  it out of the flames with her stick and ate it even though it was burnt.  ‘Never waste a good sausage!’ she laughed.  What a crack up. It took us a long time  to make a campfire that night. And when  you held your stick over the flames,  the smoke got in your eyes.

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Sarah Caroline Bell is studying the Graduate Diploma of Arts (Greek) at Victoria University of Wellington.