Hot Chips and a Coke

In this time of food phobia
eating hot chips
is a schoolboy delight
Carrying fries in a paper cup
wrapped in a grease-stained bag
I can feel the glares
stretched out from
my peers and people
twice my age
Are they silently
chastising me
for being so irresponsible -
raising my cholesterol -
anything that feels oily probably is -
as my doctor says
Or are they hungering
after my tasty bonanza
rebuking my flippant disregard
for their shoulder-to-steel
journey north to their
meat-and-three-vege wife husband kids
Don't worry I'm heading there too
Just stopped on the way to smell
the smoking oil and crackling fat
Don't I care that
I'm staring death in the face
sneers one boney man
in a suit with a
NY Marathon backpack

At least I don't smoke or base jump

People from the North Shore
who wear suits
don't eat hot chips
and drink coke
on trains

They might steal a snort on a furtive break
or claim they need a caffeine-hit-fast-fill
on the weekend with mates
but on the train in peak hour -
you watch them -
they don't -

but they wish they could -
occasionally...

it would bring back
all the freedom and escape
of after-school hours
waiting for the bus
eating chips
in pulled-down ties
shrugged-shirts ruffled-hair
jumping and laughing
stealing a smoke

Ah how the acid in coke
dissolves the chip grease
so sweetly