CHARLOTTE SIMMONDS is a Wellington-based playwright. Her book The World’s Fastest Flower, is due for publication by Victoria University Press in 2008.


       Learning Experiences

       We gave the children photos to analyse.
       In the first one, a man operates sophisticated machinery.

       He’s using a robot to make another robot.

       (The children read science fiction to the point of fanaticism.)

       Making something small, using technology, like a computer.

       In the second one, he is peeling onions with his hands.

       Lots of little vegetables. He’s using something really mechanical.

       The smell of the onions clings to the photograph.

       Something complicated.

       In the third one, the man leaps from the top of a tall building.

       I don’t know.


       At the Observatory

       We threw the stars upon the ceiling.
       We clapped three times and the lights went out.

       On the pirate station someone was singing Christmas songs:
       Hello little Texas radio!
       Does your love get into the breakfast show
       like your blood gets into the mistletoe?

       It was very warm.

       Does your love reflect the frequency
       like stars reflect indecency?

       I reached across the dark to touch your hand.