Old Gideon
My
class -
mates spent their summers watching Bewitched,
looking in the fridge, fighting with the sibs,
scraping the tar from their soles.
For me its up at 6.30
catch the 7.30
to town
the bus to
Newtown and
Pacific Souvenirs
where I'd pour heady resins into moulds
for paua shell ashtrays, plastic
dolphins, Maori girl dolls
where Old Gideon
the Pitcairn
Islander
with his hand
cupped to his only ear, would tell us how
they built boats back there, spending
months - years? - waiting for a
piece of drift - wood the right
shape to drift by -
where Stu,
in his Ugg boots would now and then faint
from the toxic fumes. The windows
wouldn't open, they were nailed
shut. Where the dirt
floor with the
12x1 path
would collect
water
when it
Welly rained.
Where Graeme told me 'the old man turns
a three thousand dollar drum of resin
into thirty thousand dollars of
plastic tikis, paua shell
fruit trays, toilet
plaques'
(some come here to sit and think...) which
my mum, in their Manners Street shop
would sell to Deepfreeze sailors,
they'd come into the shop
and ask 'is this a real
Ma-ori doll?'
She almost married
one of them, We would have moved to Traverse City,
Michigan - the state shaped like a mitten. I could
have seen Iggy & The Stooges, I could've
heard the MC5 - Suzy Quatro might
have been my neighbour.
But. She. Didn't. Marry. Him.
Hot Town, Summer in the City. Back of my Neck . . .
Rob Lamb 2012
