we skirt vast puddles and jostle awkward umbrellas, Carole Webster

Friday the thirteenth of December, twenty nineteen after the general election.

five forty-five the
boy calls
out –

‘didn’t you
hear me?’
He consents

to lie
between us, cold
footed warm hands-

for a minute, he is
muscle and fidgets so
we all get up:

in the dark kitchen
we hear the news-
it is hope

less and I
feel the weight – sore
sad rage

settes around
my ribs wrapped
black

about my
heart. I drink bitter
coffee, see to

toast, boil
eggs and spread
jam for the boy.

The radio
speaks in low
tones to a mauve cloud

and rain splinters -
meanwhile colours
are painted

on second hand
paper. We leave
the house, we edge

round vast
puddles and
jostle awkward umbrellas

all the way
to the class
room door

where it seems
to be just
another day.

At the
black book
shop shed –

I paint a
baby’s face,
soft

peony pinks
against the
shadow

at my back.
We have
hot noodles to

eat in
town – fresh
ginger and chilli,

jasmine tea unfurls
in a glass and we
walk to the exhibition

along the broken
pavements;
gum stuck,

dodging
raggy pigeons and
the plastic woven

into everything.
Anthony Gormley-
a rational

voice: there is
a shift of perspective,
down, crouching

to see Field; hand
-form figures, as earth tone
strata, their mouths a

loud, silent, echo
O - and a woman
speaks about her

bees – she
says there are
forty thousand in a hive;

a similar
number to the
crowd. I think of

ochre, umber
and honey, of
slow accretions

which grow
forward into
tomorrow where

these so
slight times
shape a

gentle countering
purpose against
a bleak day.