Margaret Alice (The Crystal Age / Pretoria - South Africa)

All in black - Nici’s boots with my tracksuit pants,
flaring like a Cossack’s, sleeveless pullover, black
cap, wishing I could dance the Russian Trepak,
stepping high in military style to the rhythms in
my earphones, a beat a step, feeling the world
reverberating to my stomping down my feet

I must have cut an impressive or incongruous
figure because one of the patrons demanded
my name from the librarian, everybody smiled,
I mysteriously replied - I am from the French
Foreign League - the librarian laughed -
marching back again, quite satisfied

With the effect of my resembling a Secret Agent,
tonight I shall march to the music playing in my
earphones down that long, unending hospital
passage to Carine’s room, putting an end to
my frustrated impatience when it takes so
many ages to reach her…