You decide
to make more of your day off
not fritter it reading books that
half-bore you books celebrated
in Sunday supplements books
that in five years or maybe ten
will represent modern fiction
on the syllabuses you teach so
you put on jeans and a jacket
which your children say makes
you look like a member of a rock
tribute band and you store that
away to think about on the trip
to town where you decide to visit
a gallery for the first time in years
and you look at pictures without
being sure what you’re looking at
but pleased that you have made
the effort because dear god there
must be more to life than rubbery
grey and here the altarpieces in
gold and blue might lift your mood
and in the gallery’s final room you
see a guard with red hair on a seat
in the corner falling asleep then
lurching awake while standing next
to him is a woman you used to see
on children’s TV programmes who
smiles at you. You smile back.
Sharon Phillips lives on the Isle of Portland. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Ink Sweat and Tears, Picaroon and Snakeskin, among others. Her poem ‘Tales of Doggerland’ won the Borderlines Poetry Competition in 2017.