Three women walk down the street
red coat, black coat, something else coat
because it’s Saturday in England in winter
their cortex clip-clop echoes all along.
I think their memories match what they see,
I think they draw their colours from the literal,
the bare tree photographed by grainy sunlight
as they walk into town without a folded map.
From the aerials of the assembled cars
there’s no network of messages circling,
no lament rising up from the shiny river,
but on its surface everything’s about to go.
And if it was today the sky failed, the year
turned a bed of darkness and more darkness,
under it all the learning of the world waited,
all the learning of the world, packed and ready.
From the Longbarrow Press pamphlet Words Through a Hole Where Once There Was a Chimpanzee’s Face (2011). Listen to Kelvin Corcoran read two further poems from the pamphlet:
Longbarrow Press 