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Kay’s Typewriter
 
 
Miss New Zealand no longer needs
a typewriter.  Her father brought it round
when he came for Sunday tea.
Kay’s a showgirl, not a typiste.
Her photo’s in 'The Australasian Post'.
That’s Kay?  Her mascara.
Her sequinned shoes.   Her skimpy outfit
of pink feathers that so shocks
my mother, makes me shiver.
She’s seventeen at last and leaving town,
highkicking in fishnet stockings across
the Tasman with George Robbie’s troupe.
 
We neither saw nor heard of Kay again.
No one ever asked.  Meanwhile, I
dismembered her typewriter
on the kitchen table, struggled
to find a place for those parts
that I was left with,
learned to type by touch.
 
Diana Brodie

If you have any comments on this poem, Diana Brodie would be pleased to hear them.

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