Words and Lines

Buying Two-Tooth

by Tris Kerslake

With mindful steps I dance the shopper’s minuet through stores that flirt with tourists and with time, where plastic cash is still a novelty and locals use a monthly slate.

In corner stalls I find that sacks are back again with rice and flour and pulses, tea and corn, and iron skillets hanging from the roof among the hats and drying blooms.

In others see the dangled racks of rawhide tack that sway and clink in leather-scented air, above the glinting coils of stainless wire tumbled neatly under counters.

And then I find myself a shaded marble shop that breathes a coolness over quiet beef, where lambs have many legs and steak is king and they are selling Two-tooth.

Not wishing to appear naive or tourist-dim I concentrate on names I understand, comparing meatballs with the porterhouse, topside, pork-chops by the Two-tooth.

She smiles at me and asks me what I’d like to put upon my table by the veg, I wave my magic finger, miny-mo and let it slip towards the stranger stuff.