Finders
We scoured the parish tip most weeks, when we were kids.
We clambered it in wellies. Ferals, we scavenged
in the debris of the adults’ lives.
Like a mad deck shuffled, our tip turned up
a fat brown teapot without a lid/ a yellow rubber duck/
a huge string vest/ a Playboy stash/
a galvanized bucket, base burned out by ash.
We shrieked and burrowed through the sodden sacks,
won a red ballcock, no chain. And why so many
rusty bicycles with missing spokes?
We delved a split tea crate
for crimson curtains, slung them
round our shoulders to make mildewed cloaks.
Then I carried home a violet on a broken plate.
Jean Atkin’s third full collection High Nowhere is was published last year by IDP. Previous publications include How Time is in Fields (IDP); The Bicycles of Ice and Salt (IDP) and Fan-peckled (Fair Acre Press). She is a poet in education and community. www.jeanatkin.com