Good morning

Good morning


It’s early; lattes and espressos scurry
on pavements stirred by meditating lorries.
I read Motion, how the horse came back with trailing reins,
how he waited twenty years for her to wake.
An Asian lad waves dust from the stone bench,
for his girl, I think, pretty with trailing scarves,
but sits on it himself. The path is splashed
with red - who are those who come in darkness
to spill their blood?  I buy bread
and sausages.

She sits with her friend, confides they never sent for me,
as if she’s missed the Second Coming.  Nearby
the woman murmurs to the microphone
she’s cunningly concealed inside her cardigan.
Old men swap coins outside the shop.  Their walking sticks
pound rhythms from the ground, shake twenty years
of footfalls from the cobblestones.
I buy books translated
from the Swedish.

First published in Obsessed with Pipework (No 52).