Accents

Inspired by one of those “Easily-influenced, could-do-better” school reports I got as a Year 9 Boarder in 1968.

Tendrils sucking round

An outstretched finger

Pink  and raw.

            Or was I an anemone

            Clasping a soft touch?

Highly suggestible

To foreign accents

Which I imitate with ease

             And then find out

             They won’t wash off.

Stained with invisible ink

Which comes and goes

In  echoes.

                Or  white plumbago sap

                Which turns to blood stains 

Exposed to change

I take on their colour,

Indelible twang and lilt.

Performed as part of Cathy's show POET TREE at The Sydney Fringe 2011 in the Sound Lounge at The Seymour Centre. September 27, 2011