He sits on the crumbling old chair
Baked in pounding summer heat
Flakes of green plastic splinter
themselves onto oil-stained cement
Thick powerful calves
Wiry goatee
Bottle of cheap beer held snug in a
flask of foam
Clasped with roughened fingers
She sits on a folding camping chair
A mesh of flexible acrylic straps in
earthy tones of brown and orange
Fleshy arms
Soggy belly
Face a crowded pattern of fine lines
Smoker’s skin and a voice like a
fistful of uncut diamonds
Reclining sun gives way to a drift of
dusty warm air
The roasted day is soothed in the way
vinegar calms
the pulsing red lump of a wasp sting
Electric intense buzz of horny
cicadas
The whine of a sad old mongrel fixed
to a heavy chain
Pig skin cracks
Greasy oil drips onto red scorching
coals
Hand resting on her grubby black
jeans
He examines her face
Notices the sticky muck in the corner
of her blood-shot eye
The way her hair clings to the scalp
He murmurs his condolences
That’s really fucked mate, that’s shit
Squeezes her pudgesome leg
Pulls his hand away
Tugs at tough shorts that grab
uncomfortably tight at the groin
Yeah, she growls, it’s fucked but
what are you gunna do
Fucken cunt
She stares at his bloated pink face
He looks at her nose, straining to recall
what she had said moments earlier
Brain malfunctioning
Misfiring as cannabis oil melts his
memory
For several seconds he dazes
Enraptured by intense deja vu
A question rips his mental bubble
like the scream of a blunt blade
cutting toughened hardwood
Youse having a fucking d&m over
there?
Pull your head in Bevan, ya fucken
wanker! he bellows
An enthusiastic and prideful machismo
In a single fluid motion his arm
swings beside the chair
Fingers grab an empty brown beer bottle
It spins through a swift elegant arc
Bounces off the crusty caramel skin
of the spitted pig
Skids across the hot gravel of the
driveway
Fuck sake, watch the pig ya fucken…
Bevan’s voice fades
The brief sizzle of saliva spat into
the coals offers face-saving retaliation
He turns back to her
Their eyes lock, hold gaze
Intoxicated intimacy flares between
them like an angry cobra
He’s a fucken moron Headsy, he
whispers
You can do better than him, you know
that don’t ya?
Headsy looks at his wet sagging lips
and desperately wants to kiss them
A tear drags it’s way down her
creased cheek
He smears it away with his calloused thumb,
grips her head roughly
Fuck him Headsy, that shit is his
issue, it’s not yours, is it? He’s psychologic in the head,
ya know what I’m saying? He’s
projecting his shit onto you and telling you
it’s your fucken problem
Her eyes widen with drunk exaggeration
Stumpy fingers curl around the side
of his palm
Yeah, she nods
Slow smile baring yellowed teeth
That’s his stuff and he’s projecting
it onto me
She draws a long breath
Feels better
Smile bends into a sneer
Yeah, she whispers, fuck him
That’s his issue
She crushes a blood-engorged mosquito
on her sweaty neck
Flicks the carcass onto the hot cement
Scratches at the prick-hole
- Shane Hill
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