One-Act Day
My
play today is dialogue
at
the deli’s open door
with
an old woman who sits
on
the padded seat
of
her walking frame.
As
we talk, back
and
forth, tradesmen bounce
out
of utilities and trucks
to
buy choc-flavoured milk
and
Mrs Mac’s pies.
Stained
with years,
the
old lady sips her coffee
and
meditates in
their
exhaust. Dress
faded,
hair grey,
she
likes to watch
tradesmen
come and go.
Local
low-lifes own
the
shopkeeper’s son who
now
pushes his daughter—
thin,
bespectacled, thirty—
toward
a law degree.
This
family’s history
is
written in skin:
Gran’s
Auschwitz number,
his
bikie gang symbols,
daughter’s
rosebud and wren.
- Andrew Burke
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