ALTERCATION.

A MAN AND HIS LANDLADY.

He altercated

with Mrs Orbeck

 

on the stairs.

Something to do

 

with him

sneaking women

 

into his room at night.

None of your business

 

if I do, he’d said.

But it was of course,

 

written into the tenant’s

agreement he’d signed

 

the year before

when he’d been desperate

 

and she seemed nice.

I will not have

 

that kind of women

in this house of mine,

 

she’d boomed, rattling

the rafters, shaking

 

the windows in their frames.

He noticed as she spoke

 

a thin fine moustache

on her upper lip

 

where sweat seemed

to have gathered

 

threatening to jump

like some weary suicide

 

on the lip’s edge.

He promised her

 

he’d not have that

kind of women

 

in his room again.

She wiped her upper lip

 

to remove the sweat.

He thought her an a*s,

 

she thought him a pain.

They never had (about

 

women at any rate)

an altercation again.

Author's Note

ART BY BERYL COOK.