MONO ISSUE 2 - Flipbook - Page 73
THE DAILY ALIEN
by Angela Arnold
You know I’d pull you out of a ditch, ignoring your mud politics no
bother. I’d bandage us up, you and me both, your innocent bigotry
and my spitting-red intolerance of it: our friendship as good as sealed,
with your pain.
You and your daily muck raking rag that you read – bloody thing
that grinds the truth fine, juggles factoids, lies constantly through its
teeth on the table between us, uses your inalienable mind for a
hook to hang Its
tendentious opinions on, and you let It. And now what’s left, among
close neighbours, that’s safe to discuss, that isn’t another hot-words
and all-kinds-of-mind-boggle stooshie waiting to happen – I’ll tell you:
weather. Cat food.
Returning the ladder, ignoring a lot of
thin ice.
Guarded pats on the back, rushed glass of white. Afraid to sit down too
definitely – what with clench-hearted rumbles, horrified grins. All too
bravely uncomprehending. And, yes, the carefully unscrewed face
that'll work
overtime as we each swallow hard, twice. We might have a deal. Still
need a ditch.
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