Poetry by Steven Bloomer
(Hightide: the Plays. 4 Plays from the Inaugural Hightide Festival)
Woman: (on voicemail) Hi. Listen I don’t want the pants back, I’m single now and I’m buying new pants. Pants you’ve never seen. And they’re all nice pants now. There’s no plain pants anymore, they’re all nice pants. So I don’t want them back... but here’s the thing, I don’t you to keep them. I know that sounds silly and I know, I know you’re not some pant fetishist but I don’t like you having my pants anymore, so that’s why I’m calling. I’d like you to throw them out or... or burn them. Preferably burn them if it’s not too much trouble. So I hope you haven’t washed them yet because that would be a waste of time. Thanks.
Oh by the way, we say a pair of pants because they consist of two independent but connected parts, the front and the back, like a pair of scissors. It goes back to the thirteenth century when people talked about a “pair of hoses”. Hoses are trousers.
Don’t tell me you love me ever again.