Vice-Grips at the Maroubra Junction Hotel

by George Anderson

She is 30
mousy pink hair
dancing with a pole
in the Maroubra Junction Hotel
pretending a thick square
support beam is her partner
& she is dancing with it
looking up occasionally
at the faceless slab
of concrete & steel
and smiling,
stomping like a trooper
then twirling
or swinging violently
from side to side.
Not too bad a dancer
But making little sense at the bar
about how she
believes in ‘truth & stamina’
other fragments spilling out, ‘god
is not a machine’, ‘brush your teeth
in a reasonable tree-like manner.’
& later
back dancing with the pole
chatting it up
shaking her hips
shaking her bone-thin limbs
her arms & legs are plastered around it
she is desperately hugging & kissing it
worshiping the hero in her skull.