Damp after Christmas
and us on the bench with a downhill view
of the back of our house, the running curve
of the street, us with a view of windows,
the windows we stand behind, tracking
the passage of prams, of people with tools
for allotments, the blurred limbs of dogs,
us on a bench with a downhill view
of the running curve of the street,
of stone long mortared into homes —
clotting the dip and rise of fields,
built by men who made four square,
set lavatories up garden paths,
homes where David and Mrs McPhee
will vanish into names, words we pause
before speaking aloud, can’t imagine
the loss, really sorry for —
homes where children are seeded
under blankets, urged into view
Jenny Hockey is a Sheffield poet and former academic. In 2013 New Writing North awarded her a New Poets Bursary. After magazine and anthology publications since 1985, Oversteps Books published her collection, Going to bed with the moon in 2019. jennyhockeypoetry.co.uk