Ken Champion
She Wouldn't Do That
This is a Docklands go-kart track,
puddles of tyres flooding over the old railway lines
and softening the hard chicane
as matchstick kids with helmets like smokedglass planets
skid around like big brothers do in twilight car parks.
She waves them off in their playgroup mini-bus,
her face at rest after the screeching of
brakes and tongues all afternoon,
with hyperactive Chris, desperate and high
on pop and crisps, demanding her eyes.
Gotta get these certificates signed, she smiles,
entering a portakabin with Race Manager Steve.
(He’s a pretty boy, she says, all the girls go ga ga).
And an hour later, as turbojets roar over
the sugar factory, I’m still waiting.
In my no-go-car I see her straddled across
a table as, pen in one hand, her in the other,
oilslick grinning, winning, Steve
gets his East End beast end away,
karting along her track, into her curves...
No.
She wouldn’t do that.
Page(s) 105
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