Commute
the water on the road
the leaves in beaten hedgerow
the beat-up car leaves
the water on the car
is flicked off by the wipers
there onto burnside road
the brown water in the burn
the hill it scours and turns
water stronger than the rock
the water on the road
never stops culvert hedgerow
beaten back and lochans
stand in fields can’t stop
the rain the beaten-up car
bites through on its way
the water leaves and hay
steams in stacks
at ploughed field edge
the tractor chews the herbiage
brown water on the road
the hedge sinks into the dark
the light leaves a beat-up sky
I go this way just to get home
the water on the road
Bridget Khursheed is a poet based in the Borders; she also edits www.poetandgeek.com ; recent work in The Eildon Tree, Stravaig, Poetry Scotland, Northwords Now, Valve, Message in a Bottle, Gutter, Up the Staircase and Southlight; obsessively logging the A68 over Soutra and birdlife on Easter Road. She has just won a Scottish Book Trust New Writer Award for poetry.