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Sport 34: Winter 2006

Tom

page 107

Tom

Solid rimu, says Tom. Bangs the bedroom wall twice with his heavy palm. Wall of their new home, on the town's edge, pasted in by tar seal and paddocks. I've been meaning to lift the carpet and polish the floorboards.

It's lovely, says Sylvia. Everything is lovely.

In the living room and in the bedrooms Federico studies the carpet. Its rose pattern is most worn where someone's feet first touched the floor every morning for years. He imagines that person, stepping into his foot-hold and slowly wearing down the pile, like a body.

Tom makes a gesture with his freckled hands. I could show you how to turn a bowl. Federico imagines bowls spinning through thin air. Weightless. He turns and runs down the hall on the threadbare roses, jumps three porch steps out into the white heat of midday.