The Sky Was Falling

There was always, of course, the cold
– its freezing pretty fingerprints on our side of the pane.
While we lay loved beneath the loaded blankets,
a new day shivered through the filigree
and mum stretched vests before the 2 bar Belling fire.

Her kitchen kept a thick volcano
blurting in the pan.
Golden Syrup lingered from our spoons.

In mitts and knitted balaclavas,
in Cherry Blossomed shoes,
we scuffed our way to school,
cracking open puddles: happy vandals,
dancing on their creak and splinter.
And on playtime’s frosted tarmac
we smoothed the longest slide there ever was.

All afternoon, the brooding, building cloud
hung her hammock ever lower overhead,
until it split and spilled the proof
that Chicken Licken had not been misled.

We watched and wondered what it meant.
Who brought about this accident?
What altar boy had tripped
and tipped communion wafers?
Which flower girl had thrown up
way too much confetti?
Was anyone in trouble over it?

We stared,
and were allowed to stare,
first pressed against the glass,
then rushing openhanded
through the door,
sticking out our tongues
to taste the sugar-fairy skirts
that curtsied as they slanted
to the floor.

It snowed and snowed and as we went to bed,
the street slept amber, soft between the lamps.
When morning woke us, light had never spread
so white with empty promise,
so magnificently blank.

Joe Crocker hasn’t worked in years. He succumbed to a muse during Covid and has had some success in online poetry platforms. Otherwise he is eye-wateringly uninteresting.  Googling him will tell you all about a deceased Sheffield-born rock singer.