in this outer suburb,
times are ungenerous -
a struggling main street
business community
competing for custom,
but we get to our local
weekly
where publican Dave
talks up regulars
who make trade viable

in conversation
i learn of those
obsequious
inner suburbanites
wanting to impress friends
with bulk bookings
unsuited to this establishment

Dave can’t cater
for larger groups
and those phone calls, he says,
never end well

when i leave that welcoming,
warm open fire, mid-afternoon,
two neo-moderns enter
and request,
a lemonade & raspberry
and a pineapple juice

tough times, surely

First published in “Platinum Poems Anthology”,
20th Anniversary of ‘Frances’, 2019.