Shortlong    JOAN KERR   My father's steps on the way home from church long strides with the toes turned slightly in boot leather creaking. When he sees I'm trying to keep in step he alters his rhythm, short long slow quick. He pretends he doesn't see how I skip and stride to keep in step. There's a slight smile at the corners of his mouth but he'll never stop and laugh or let me win. I always wondered what he thought of me a question with no boundary like wondering how the world that was so big could fit into my eye. Now on the long patrol of duty, cruise control up and down each week on the Melbourne road the breakdown phones tick by at 2k intervals. One day soon we'll be clearing out the house we'll be coming away from an old man's funeral and where the house was there'll be level ground. © Joan Kerr 2001 Joan Kerr has been published in a range of literary journals and on national radio in Australia, and in Antipodes in the USA. She was joint winner of the Fellowship of Australian Writers' John Shaw Neilson Poetry Prize in 1999 and won the Henry Kendall Poetry Prize in 2000.  TLR Web home page