Ken Bolton / September Poems / 11.
13  (West Hampstead)
I buy a jumper—
a top—at the Children’s
Health charity shop
The woman asks where
I’m from? “Australia.”
“You, too,” I add—
recognising her accent
& her look more than anything.
She thinks she can still detect
Australian in my speech. A trace,
she says. I’ve only been here
four weeks, I tell her:
“I’m from Adelaide—
the more ‘proper’ accent.”
We laugh, foreign-sounding
to the Brits around us.
Ken Bolton
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13  (West Hampstead)
I buy a jumper—
a top—at the Children’s
Health charity shop
The woman asks where
I’m from? “Australia.”
“You, too,” I add—
recognising her accent
& her look more than anything.
She thinks she can still detect
Australian in my speech. A trace,
she says. I’ve only been here
four weeks, I tell her:
“I’m from Adelaide—
the more ‘proper’ accent.”
We laugh, foreign-sounding
to the Brits around us.
Ken Bolton