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David Santer

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Ribbon Development

Up here is the cold church, graves
and the slightly better houses
things digital, four wheel drives.
This is where the barbecues are held.
Here’s the post box, the old school
converted, a fallen milk-stand. Snow.
There are sheep.

The other side of the Taw, down there
invites frost and council houses.
By the river is the bird hospital
the Plymouth Brethren, crazy ideas
and tin-pot roof, the telephone kiosk.
We rarely meet. I think it’s snowing.
There are sheep.

Between, nothing but white hedges
fields and a lane ripe for development.
The village is split, nothing holds
together, no facilities. It will happen
one day for better, for worse, opposites
attracting, like repelling like. I shiver
kid myself

there are more places than reality
where things can happen. Between here
and there on the bridge over the Taw
I feel you at my elbow, slight, nothing
between us, snow giving that certain
lack of definition. I would like to say
you look great.

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