{"id":374,"date":"2011-09-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=374"},"modified":"2011-09-10T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-09-10T11:00:00","slug":"ruth-stacey-is-on-the-cautious-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/ruth-stacey-is-on-the-cautious-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Ruth Stacey is 'On the Cautious Road'"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Cautious Road<\/span>

The Hitchhiker holds his sign hopefully.<\/span>
It is such a sad little sign; <\/span>
\u2028Limp and with a spelling mistake.\u2028<\/span>
Yet it is the way I am going.<\/span>
\u2028If this was 1943 I would stop.\u2028<\/span>
If I was a man I would stop.\u2028<\/span>
Why is he standing there, they ask.<\/span>
I answer. My children look at me and say\u2028<\/span>
Well, we could give him a lift?<\/span>
\u2028I can't admit that I imagine the worst\u2028<\/span>
That could happen, the things<\/span>
\u2028They don't know about yet;<\/span>
Rare and unlikely but possible<\/span>
Chance of him snuffing out our lights,<\/span>
Their miniature bones lost in the earth.<\/span>

So I quickly reply that this car is too \u2028<\/span>
Noisy for that traveller, \u2028<\/span>
He looks like he has a headache.\u2028<\/span>
We drive straight past.\u2028<\/span>
The children wave.<\/span>



*Ruth Stacey<\/a> <\/span><\/font> writes poems in the fleeting spaces between motherhood and studying Native American Literature. It is not the easiest way to be a writer, but it is her way.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Cautious RoadThe Hitchhiker holds his sign hopefully.It is such a sad little sign; \u2028Limp and with a spelling mistake.\u2028Yet it is the way I am going.\u2028If this was 1943 I would stop.\u2028If I was a man I would stop.\u2028Why is he standing there, they ask.I answer. My children look at me and say\u2028Well, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}