Description
A Note On The Ambulation Of Queueing Australians At Hong Kong Airport
As witnessed by the author after an absence from the mother country of some six weeks
A way of walking – loose-boned and spacious
A jaunt, feet lagging. Dragging, lifting little, caring less.
There’s room for the treading, room for the spreading. Room for the elbow on the bar.
A comfy, gravitational gait. Moving bodies – human freight.
Pale and lumpy. Laconic, dumpy. Dowdy.
Smeared and wrinkled. Freckled and dimpled.
Posture poor, belt secure
Across a gut that moves in gentle synchrony
With an off-hand, unmeasurable step.
Publication: The Age, 23 January 1988.
