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CATH KENNEALLY
Crying Girl
- brisk-trotting down the bike path
- propelling Junior in the pram, keeping
close up
- against her bloke who's striding it out,
steely-jawed
-
- I thought you'd be there, she bawls,
loudly, way
- past caring that this walker who's drawn
level
- might eavesdrop. Her late-teens
tight-packed fleshy
-
- face is blotched and smeared. She dashes
snot &
- tears across it with one hand loosed
momentarily
- from the buggy handle. They belt ahead
too fast
-
- for me to hear his answer, save that it's
dis-
- missive, curt, and I can see he looks
straight
- ahead, rotating a rollie between his
fingers
-
- he won't be there, that seems clear,
perhaps just not
- today, perhaps not for the wedding, or
christening, or never again.
- He's a cartoon tough, stays rawhide dry
while she dissolves
-
- She's leaking at all the seams but he's a
fish's bum
- they're coming unstitched by the waters
of Tamar
- the holey family of Launceston
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