We've a choice of styles for you today – verse poetry and a prose poem – enjoy…
YOU’VE PROBABLY SAID
something funny:
that’s your usual way.
She’s thrown her head back
and laughed. You like her
because she’s not afraid
to do this. You like her
because she laughs
at your jokes, your asides:
she’d be next to you
to get those, and give them
back herself, she’d
always be next to you.
You’re both bright, unlined;
just the creases
of laughter around
your mouths, your eyes;
and light in whorls
on the wall behind.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RETAIL PARK
Another Sunday, and traffic’s beached up. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores, the day breathing fire in our familiar faces, prodding us under our ribs. There’s fag ends scattering the tarmac like crabs’ legs, and families keen to bury each other. The temperature gets even higher: we lean into it like a brick wall. Some kids splash in a small forecourt of shadows, Olympic with ice-cream. We buy a fridge, to live inside. Stores cliff the tides, their chattering shores. Men with metal detectors mourn. The sky breaks, like teeth.
* Nigel Pickard is a regular IS&T contributor. His first collection Making Sense was published by Shoestring (2003) and his first novel One was published by Bookcase (2005).
