GAS & AIR:

The radio talks farming as I turn it on. Some mornings I like the
poetry the farmers speak, but this morning I need a melody so flip
the station just in time to catch my my friend Colin singing,
‘Wonderful Life’, his voice still alive in the airwaves. I sing
along in the shower, learning the words so I can slip them into
an underworld song when no one’s looking. Then a woman sings about
wanting to pull a man & we’re back into the river of life again.
The DJ confides she was ‘bopping a bit’ when that one played & I
loose the rest as I start to shave, harmonising with the hum of an
electric friend nibbling on my skin. Pack the lap top in a bag,
load it in the car & drive before the sun comes up. A solitary man
walks a black dog in the fields, a car pulls into the slot in front
of me, disgorging eager young boys in football boots. The market
square smells faintly of fish, fleets of freezer vans abandoned in
side streets. The traders are setting up their stalls in heavy
winter clothes, a solitary man leans against a shop front up an
alley for a smoke, catches me clock him as I pass, looks guilty.
Two geezers conspire outside the betting shop, lighting cigarettes,
heavy necks retracted into shoulders. I turn of the street into
the welcoming glow of a cafe. All my favourite seats are taken,
so I find a table in a new location next to two boys getting off on
drum & bass rattling the tiny speakers of cell phones in their hands.
It’s a new day, anything could happen. I’m turning left instead of
right today.

(K)