Steering



In the rearview

in the backseat

with delight illuminated

in the sunshine

the face of my boy, aged three

intent on his toy,

a present from me:

a steering wheel that adheres to the seat in front

so that he can copy his dad.

I smile, and he smiles,

as we swing through the streets.



But hang on –

that last left

was wrong, has brought me to an area I don’t know.

And I am clouded by indecision:

turn back, or try to correct the error?

These roads are a labyrinth of misleading markers:

stores, terraces, funeral parlours.

I need to pull up to get my bearings,

and I do so, by a cane fence

(the kind that’s opaque unless you squint, unfocus).



My son’s face again, but now

his features are faintly creased in a frown.

And, from behind me, the sounding of a small horn.





The rewards of travelling




Leaving the 6am town made of swirling dust

and bade good riddance by incestuously familiar dogs

the thwarted trees bend after him

and bemoan their exposed and pissed-on roots.

 
 
 
 

 
Smile




Smile through the blood and emerging bruises

not yet knowing what you already are

to others






Doctors




Doctors have nothing –

in the pay of the state –

they have nothing for unsafe structures

that creak nervously, worried by the slightest wind

nothing for a voice that can’t muster love

nothing for the residue of cobwebs in windows –

 
 
 
 
three things sideways




trains cannot admit they will their derailment

gardening is not archaeology, but turns up poems that are stillborn romances

memory is the end-calibration of life, missing the ranges that unmeasure beyond it