Janette’s getting married in five years.
She says it in my kitchen, palms cupped
warm round the blue-rimmed mug I bought last
summer. She’s waiting for a boy to
ride into her life and carry her
away from the Ohau Foodstore to
a place with a house and children like
her sister has.
And I want to find a boy for Janette
A pin-up on a red Yamaha
even an ugly one who is kind
to pets
but how do I say to her, without
treading hard on her dreams, that when she
gets there she mightn’t think it was worth
the ride, and that there’s no hitching back
to who you were.
I have no taste for it so I smile
and tell her instead, with all the truth
of an habitual deceiver,
that her turn will come.
Carol Markwell
