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published in Smiths Knoll, 2003
On a slope
Trapped
for ever in this town
a
green, open prison with too much sky,
too
much surface area cooling quickly down
where
spinsters and wealthy men who wear
ironed
jeans scowl along supermarket aisles.
You
serve them, burning up, desperate for
your
share. Perhaps you have been forgotten
or
the very best you deserve is a carnival
by
the canal locks, featuring the local librarian
and
her Silver Thread choir echoing into cul-de-sacs
through
a P.A. system that plays
Devizes
Hospital Radio simultaneously
while
children that you used to be, drop their jaws
at
the 70-something balloon-twister.
He
has a fight with the puppet on his hand.
He
makes them cry and rain darkens pavement and brick.
Swans
refuse to be fed any more, to make givers happy;
what
wring-able necks.
The
supermarket clatters shut.
It’s
light for hours yet.
You
go to cross the street, stop on double yellows-
all
these roads lead to relatives, or abattoirs
frantic
through the night with pigs and cows, or worse,
bend
back on themselves.
Graham Clifford
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