Poetry

Les Murray: Two Poems

Parental Job Swap Sitting next to his flagon on the morning stairs, his wife on the bus lovingly escaping eight children.   He hiccups the courage to go to his emptied duties and stay drunk enough to hold on there while assuring dismissal—   he remembers that his wife has finally taken her own job and the bus, continually promoted, dark jacket to silk-cream jacket,   rumbles like his gut in the day. He, falling over his flagon has suffered the good disaster as his wife is promoted yet again   through the roof, above the children who had been…

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