Saturday, December 03, 2011

A poem I've been fiddling with forever... Draft for comment


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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