Between the moon and a milkman
a door opens into this day,
cleared of storm-felled boughs.
Woodpigeon, barely awake,
warm on the tarmac of country lanes
already summer hot.
At a junction of cross purposes
we argue about direction.
Seconds only to choose which turn to take.
The motorway claims it is improving
the image of construction.
Concrete spreads like lava.
Gorse and ragwort occupy the edges –
the gilets jaunes of highway maintenance.
Hedges, crew cut, like skinheads.
A portrait view of bolted lorry backs.
Logistics, freight,
the wheeze and woosh of air brakes.
Splayed roadkill litters the hard shoulder:
magpie, fox, and badger.
What remains of spindle-legged deer.
Tiredness can kill –
South Mimms services is break of last resort.
‘Employee of the month’ unnamed.
With wary aggression
a herring gull, gimlet-eyed,
patrols the leavings.
A two-mile tailback grinds the other way.
Cow parsley runs to seed;
the first gold blocks of hay, stacked & bound.
Stop & go. Flat earth stares.
In dingy light we watch the sky empty,
but the smug heat lingers.
viii. 2023
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