By Marg Roberts
you pour me a glass
of Pinot, yourself a lager.
I wear my slinky grey dress
Alison’s orange and cream
wrap, curled around
my neck and chest.
You in your favourite, blue
black check shirt, tight-
at-the-bum jeans.
And we chat – how we’re
feeling, how we’re missing
family and friends, how
sometimes we’re scared.
Always we ring Alison, Kara
a sister or two.
Always we sip our drinks
in our going-out clothes.
Too soon yet to voice a dream
of crossing the road
wearing these very same
clothes, catch 67 bus
where we greet the smiley
man from Tobago, the loud
woman with her even louder
child.
Too soon to dream of that walk
along Oxford street
to the crowded Leif
where you order and
fetch our drinks from the bar.
Marg Roberts is a poet and novelist. Her novel, A Time For Peace, was published by Cinnamon Press.