A prop
As when after a fireworks display
people walk along dim streets, retinas
replaying something of those
stalks and petals of colour, I pushed
my son from a cold bright morning
coughing into the Health Centre
waiting-room, holding open the door
for an old lady zimmering out, and
he turns to see how she moves
at a pace set by the kind of clock
that has an arm struggling against
a weak battery, and inside I’m told
the doctor has been delayed by
some kind of accident, and when she
does arrive there are several
ahead of us, but after a minute
of measuring and probing, a few
well-aimed questions, a prescription
which he need not actually take,
a reassurance that has the subtext
that we need not have come in at all,
I strap him back in the pushchair
and start out again to the car-park
where images push around us,
he lifts his finger to point but
cannot rest his finger on any of them:
cars turn, a jumpy wind ambushes
and plays with a sweet-wrapper,
a distant helicopter throbs like
a toothache, a woman pauses while
her dog pushes out a turd,
a conversation is thrown between
two cyclists, and there are several
species of birds, one of which
perches briefly but undeniably
on the old lady’s metal frame, who
has by this time (and it is as if
all of this time she has been the only
thing that was really moving)
almost reached the car-park gate.
people walk along dim streets, retinas
replaying something of those
stalks and petals of colour, I pushed
my son from a cold bright morning
coughing into the Health Centre
waiting-room, holding open the door
for an old lady zimmering out, and
he turns to see how she moves
at a pace set by the kind of clock
that has an arm struggling against
a weak battery, and inside I’m told
the doctor has been delayed by
some kind of accident, and when she
does arrive there are several
ahead of us, but after a minute
of measuring and probing, a few
well-aimed questions, a prescription
which he need not actually take,
a reassurance that has the subtext
that we need not have come in at all,
I strap him back in the pushchair
and start out again to the car-park
where images push around us,
he lifts his finger to point but
cannot rest his finger on any of them:
cars turn, a jumpy wind ambushes
and plays with a sweet-wrapper,
a distant helicopter throbs like
a toothache, a woman pauses while
her dog pushes out a turd,
a conversation is thrown between
two cyclists, and there are several
species of birds, one of which
perches briefly but undeniably
on the old lady’s metal frame, who
has by this time (and it is as if
all of this time she has been the only
thing that was really moving)
almost reached the car-park gate.
Giles Goodland’s last book was A Spy in the House of Years(Leviathan 2001). He has a book forthcoming from Salt in 2006.
Page(s) 29
magazine list
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
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- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
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- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
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