Title: Delicious

Author: Bill Manhire

In: Sport 34: Winter 2006

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, 2006

Part of: Sport

Keywords: Verse Literature

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Sport 34: Winter 2006

Delicious

page 54

Delicious

There is a man in our town who thinks everything is delicious. Outside the supermarket, he points at the trolley my wife is wheeling to the car.

'Delicious!'

Yet he cannot even see what is inside our tightly packed plastic bags! Then, when I am reversing the car, I see him pointing at the long line of empty trolleys which a boy is pushing back to the supermarket entrance.

'Delicious!'

Yesterday he was standing outside the Shell station beside the small pile of pine saplings which they always sell for Christmas. People take them away in their cars.

'Delicious!'

I heard that he once went to a lecture up at the university. It was a lecture for first-year students on the earth's magnetic core. When the professor came in and asked for attention…

'Delicious!'

Sometimes I see him walking with an elderly man near the hospital, and they are talking together in hushed, scurrying voices. But usually he is by himself, outside the cafes and public buildings, calling his single word. He points at a lawyer or a skinhead or a priest waving down a taxi…

page 55

Quite recently I saw him standing with our Mayor, the one who will be thrown out at the next election. I heard her say, 'Peter, why do you always say, "Delicious"?'

But he turned away from her and pointed high into the sky. The whole shape of his body was accusing. Perhaps he felt she had left off the exclamation mark.

'Delicious!' he cried. 'Delicious! Delicious! Delicious!'