Owen Gallagher
The Great Trekker
My brother Tariq’s travel journals are obsessive,
from the weight of planes, to how many stones
were laid in The Great Wall of China.
He has stuck his tongue out at Maoris, lain in wait
for the Yeti, filled our salt cellar from the Dead Sea.
In Bangladesh he has recorded how many spools
were consumed annually by our cousins
using their Singer sewing machines.
It is his ambition to canoe the length of the Ganges,
to enter The Guinness Book of Records.
In between trips he watches travel programmes,
plots his way up rivers and paths across his walls,
memorises star patterns pasted to his ceiling.
Mornings, he lays his full travelling kit out,
times himself like a marine.
Tariq is studying the art of water divining.
He is on a subscription to the National Geographic.
Yet he has never ventured outside Southall.
He is high level autistic. Dad keeps trying
to interest him in the Lottery.
Page(s) 87
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- Chroma
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- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
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- Shearsman
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- Staple
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- Thumbscrew
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