Poem number 30.
I feel like a marathon runner limping over the line. 30 poems in 30 days is a great project, but I am now mentally drained. Here’s the final offering:
Face from the Past
I ran into him in the supermarket.
Older, but still that cocky look.
At first it felt good to see him.
We went to a coffee shop,
recalled memories
of laughs, of late night drinking sessions,
of shared trials and triumphs.
Then he launched into the same speeches
he used to make twenty years ago.
The one about how he hates Adelaide.
(he’s still here)
The one about how all Aborigines are useless
(he’s never actually spent time with one)
The one about how he’s broke
(he’s earned good money all his life)
The one about how women have always taken advantage of him
(he constantly scans the bodies of the young waitresses)
The one about how useless the Labor government is
(he’s spent most of his working life being paid by them)
But the final speech I hadn’t heard before:
how he’d been sacked for harassment
and was now having trouble finding a job.
That was a new one
but somehow it made sense.
Somehow it was all the others rolled into one.
We finished our coffees,
swapped telephone numbers,
promised to catch up for a beer.
I might see him again in another twenty years.
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