Alan Wearne

Side by side

Neutral Bay

            I’d get in from the airport after midnight
and wait a day, till someone came around,
unloaded me and made me Thanks sweetheart
$15,000 richer. Then I’d hardly be noticed,
not till Allison called, or Kay, and we went off to buy
all these incredible clothes.
            I knew of two apartments, ours and theirs;
theirs, a place where you went in,
(saw The Organisation dropping by to pack the stuff)
and you went out.
                                    What did I think I was,
not old enough to break the law? What law?
By then the only law I had to keep
was getting away with knowing Terry Clark,
so yes I was old enough. I did it,
did it often enough; and whoever I was
I just needed an identity, even if
I didn’t need an identity. I was smart and
waiting about on the fringes of Terry Clark’s
banal life, hardly knew what I did,
except that I was that damn special.
             Giving myself a week away from spending
I caught a light aircraft back to the folks,
stayed up to near midnight
doing gossip with Mum. Of course
someone’s kid was ‘into drugs’,
always someone’s kid and always drugs.
             And I thought
Who knows what The Organisation’s doing
right now: cutting, grinding and packing;
delivering, collecting and waiting
and how I never wanted to feel damn special again.
But Thanks a lot sweetheart of course I did.