Reader Submissions

home town

by

Jean Bohuslav

it’s a young man carrying beer to his car after a hard week

It’s the salesman’s cologne and demeanour as he chats to the pretty young shop keeper

It’s the mother sipping coffee outside the eatery to save her sanity

three littlies drawing on the pavement around her feet

an old man and his dog walking the block twice a day

hikers acknowledging each other on beach tracks

It’s the lady who said she couldn’t make it through another winter alone and then died

the teenager who plays drums most days after school

a neighbour whose cat is having chemotherapy

the girl who went to weekly confession so she could keep having sex before marriage

the electric guitarist who deafened everyone in the tea break to avoid socializing

the parents who shifted interstate to escape their dependent children

the woman who spent all day in the garden to avoid house work

a mother who was so ashamed she became a missing person