Category: Love

She held up the matinee jacket
“what do you think…..?”
Smartarse -ness felt an urge: “ the dingoes will love it ”
flippancy deferred, deferred in response to the tone
“I saw it and knew my granddaughter had to have it.”
Pedigree babywear
…… the expensive end of cheap
or
cheap end of expensive.

Occupying the margins of sociology,
from the bleak suburbs
lifelong renter – property ownership : sky pie
divorced, years ago
marriage, brief and passing
one daughter raised single-handedly, hardscrabble.
A cleaner, with her designer tiny
pushed flat against full-sized bust,
brought to mind Mrs Harris and her dress. “I got it on lay-by,
it only took four pays.”

In a small room
his hands seemed even larger
brought mind Kenny Rogers’ Lucille –
big and calloused
from removing wool from sheep
shearing 300 day – that’s what he did before buying a farm.

The hands surround the cup
encircling
gathering words to speak obituary and eulogy.
That statue on the hill above the town?
“Yes.”
It was to a local politician
a visionary,
who had enacted legislation which broke up England owned estates.

10 years later
recognized with a knighthood
by then the former politician too frail
too frail to travel to the capital
or even the local town
the future King to be was visiting the then colony
his train stopped at the local siding
the ailing politician shuffled on board
to kneel and receive the sword … and die six weeks later.

Eyes glistened
a tear formed
the former shearer said, “ It’s how I got my farm.”

It was no contest
game over
a no brainer
cute four-year-old needing a liver transplant
versus
white middle aged, middle class, medical specialist.

The television interviewer
young
and pretty
with Parisienne lips
and refugee hips asks, no demands,
no shrills
why, when suitable donors die every day
the little girl cannot have what she needs – now.

The lived in face
stares directly at the camera
“ you must understand
that the people who end up here
left home, normal, walking, talking, laughing people
sometimes, that’s as little as one hour ago
often, they look exactly the same
but
they are clinically dead or
soon will be.”

A nod to a room peripheral to the camera
“and I have to go out there
and tell the families –
it’s never easy
but sometimes … most times,
it is simply out of the question, to put the question, “ can we have the spare parts.”