Patricia Prime: PUBLICATION

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. . . on the road our ‘dummy’ book in a raffia bag we discuss the photos for our latest collaboration – by the steps of the printer’s house swan plants covered with Monarch butterflies – a caterpillar crushed on the gravel path – between shifts of proof-reading a brief interlude for homemade shortbread and tea among the computers and discarded print-outs – the cardboard we’d bought from the Warehouse too thick to copy we return the ream with several sheets missing – still they change it – bird-like he waves a woman away from his door and returns to his screens – he’s a middle-aged hippie with a scruffy beard and the tail of his checked shirt hanging out – on his hand basin one cake of cracked soap and a notice ‘please after flushing the toilet turn the handle to six o’clock’

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his notebook
hard-bound leather cover
slightly dog-eared
hand-written on an inside page
‘love is unnecessary’

by Patricia Prime

Auckland, New Zealand

first published in Lynx XXIII:1, February 2008