Civic Duty
By Zenobia Frost
Published 1 January 2021
Rosalie, Brisbane
Each day’s late fee
is one more day
in business. Walk the aisles
making mantras of titles,
shuffle worn carpet,
thumb static horror
blurbs in Papyrus:
finite options; infinite terror.
Stocked with boxed ways
to avoid going out,
our last local refuge of
streetpress dregs and special
favourite-members’ deals.
We no longer need to flash our card
to revisit films we rented once
or just once more – their covers,
like windows or tombstones.
But one day Civic Video
will close and on that day
there will be nothing:
neon-gone – a glowing
museum set piece.
Whatever killed the dinosaurs
is killing Civics. Already paleozoic,
Blockbuster never saw Rosalie
craft an ark of empty video cases.
A little more home
in that loyalty card
we never end up
cashing in.