the smell of chlorine
your locker key
on a safety pin
and another torn
verruca sock
~
swimming pool hair
still wet
in car park dark
clutch a small treat
from
the
new
vending
machine
that backlit shining sugar cave
~
gold cortina 1.6 gl
vinyl roof
drives
us
home
inside winters
longest nights
~
butter melting
into crumpet holes
and
peter davidsons wearing cricket whites
on tv
in dr who
inexplicably
unarmed
again
banehuntress.co.uk
there
was
swimming
and
buttered crumpets
and
dr who
in
the
warm breath
when
school was done
from www2.tv-ark.org.uk
theres crevasses or canyons / something like that / a gash in the earth / a metaphor for bad times
and
the rock walls are painted by children
maybe not a canyon / maybe a small suburban deadend / heavy with jubilee and thick with sunshine / thats sepia and old
and
happy-sad
the children have painted failure
and
awful
hopeless future doom on the garage doors
theres a snake in the canyon / in the cul-de-sac / long and pulsing like an angry thing / he surges from the manhole the older kids would lift up and climb down
before
all
the parents
drove
new Fords
back
from
their offices for supper / crumpets / and Dr Who
hes another metaphor / for journeys ? or primal spinebrain ?
or
the
silent
companion - death / ignored till we're shrivelled like prunes / weak as kittens and ready / misty with memories
all
todays
bewildering
and
the
same
anyway
ive
saddled
his
back - hes patterned in the colours of a 70s hallway carpet
and
we
move
into
the park / empty and stale / long grass touches my knees / teenagers smoke on the climbing frame / its almost noon / dead time / sun almost directly above
so
theres almost
no
shadows
at
all
my brain is boiled / is bleached / a metaphor for age
and
burnout ?
and
slowly
we
move
on . . .
from slatford.co.uk
