Overalls
For twenty-seven years she wore them. The factorythrust its bloody quota past her six days a week,and she did what she had to. The gloves and bootsand heavy denim became first and last lines of defence.She lost a thumb once, then a fingertip a year later.
Language didn't come into it. She got sick and sackedin the same fortnight, then lay doggo for a decade.When the bewildered husband finally gave out, she hidbehind her embarrassed teenagers until, at last,they went too. She appeared in language classes
where she made friends easily; one in particular.They married. She persevered with speakingand listening, wrote when needed, didn't read.Today, she finds a picture on a vocabulary sheetand tells the class all this. She's lucky, she says.
Frank Abel
Interval
As Stephen Boros told mewhen I was settled in his office,the world doesn't stopfor Stephen Boros,yet as he mildly peddleda plan for superannuationI felt a soft suspensionor an idling of the clock.A photograph in silver giltconspired to inspire admirationof the Boros family life:two tots anyonewould be a sucker for,an adolescent wife poutingand in slanting, smoky sunlight —a claw of golden proteasglowing in a pot. So who inall the world could saythat the world had never stoppedfor Stephen Boros?
Ross Jackson
hospice
your handin her
hand, somefluttering wilderness
behind hereyes that you
can't walkthrough
& we talkabout a visit
& a goodbyefrom the gaps
of years& circumstance
because of a past& this present
this timethe way things are
Rory Harris
Frank Abel lives in Hobart, and has previously taught English (ESL).
Ross Jackson is a retired schoolteacher from Perth. He has had poetry and short stories published locally and interstate.
Rory Harris is a poet and teacher. His poetry collections include Over the Outrow, From the Residence, Snapshots From a Moving Train, 16 poems, and Uncle Jack and Other Poems.
Meat image from Shutterstock