Geneva
Tantrum at the hypermarche checkout
a mother rigid with shame wishes
the plastic floor would swallow them both,
and maybe it will deposit them down there.
Under their feet indifferent to boundaries
a twenty mile wide ring collides protons
like mother and child emitting particles
examines their properties, red-faced tears
furious shrieks hidden structures
Outside cigales rattle into evening percussion
for a song played by a cooling landscape
after a day of summer hammering
Give me a ship that that travels west
across the lake, my back to the moon
face towards the land of the young
Ruth Aylett is joint author of the pamphlet Handfast (Mother’s Milk) and has been published by The North, Prole and Interpreter’s House among others. She lives in Edinburgh where she works with robots and AI. More at http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~