Accidents & Emergencies
We met in ward light,
hands bandaged from climbing cuts,
scaling places we couldn’t control,
with paper and pens and violin trills:
world seemed so sharp, without graces.
But we spoke like prisoners, batting away
winking sunshine, locked in jabbing
rhythm to see which gave first:
my flat regionalisms, your wordly
cross-splendour.
First things handed as struck metal,
a running of corridors we get let
on, as careful dancers do when they
can’t face a breaching of light,
a cutting of fabric sheet.
Then it was open, warming song
of jumping fumes from open street
air, covered pound notes in cooling
of August fabric, but something
more than that to melody
of scamper-flashing ambulance lights
you could be heard to say:
“Is this in A, is it in E?”
“No, both.”
183rd Weekly Poetry Contest