Speed Indication Device
I hurry to town, call Hello! to the one
whose hair is pinned in a bun,
and sings alto in the Community Choir;
wave to toddlers in the park – a shortcut
from my school at playtimes when
I was allowed to run to the library;
glance at that cottage I’m glad to not own –
pink cob walls renovated last summer,
stained again by weeks of rain –
and at 6th-formers who amble,
fill the path, link arms then mouths
under the horse-chestnut’s early blossom.
SLOW DOWN – 30 – flashes red at a car.
I stop at this moment
of clouds and catkins and white hair.
Lesley Burts’s poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies, including: Tears in the Fence, The Interpreter’s House, Sarasvati, Reach, Prole and The Butchers Dog and Sentinel Literary Quarterly Oct-Dec 2016; also online, e.g. in Poetry Kit, Long Exposure and Strange Poetry.