Spring 1833 – mists folding their sheets in the fields.
Isaac Roberts feels the turned earth, his father’s
farm an island in the hurtling Milky Way –

Wet tarmac blinks red and gold,
names shine outside the Gaumont.
‘Stop dreaming, you’ll get lost.’

Before the first turn of the key, before
adjusting the mirror, before releasing the handbrake even,
Dad said: there are two things you need to know.

Alive, but not exactly,
as it fills the frame, flicker-lit
by lightning. . .

This morning

the room is bright with snowlight
and everything seems illuminated differently.

Every Sunday he insists on beef
from Boggs’s butchers, a forty minute drive
away.

It’s hard to say what he did, my father.
His shoulders portaged crates,
he captained boats in the night,
chocolate eggs would appear
which smelt of ChefChaouen.

I rolled an orange across daybreak;
I waited for the moon to ripen.