Liz Atkin
Alarm
After the smash
that shatters shop front glass
and the shrieking panicky alarm
hysterical with grab and snatch,
after all this has died down
come the men
in an ancient lorry
to board it all up
whistling and banging
on everyone’s sleep
as they cover the jagged gape,
then down the middle
of the deserted road watched
by dogs on windowsills
comes the old lady from Pea Street
naked but for hat and shopping bag,
she pauses to gaze into
the chipboard shop front
making minor adjustments
to the clothes she thinks
she is wearing,
and now the alarm
is apathetic, impervious
its silence stifling
as she walks on over splintered glass.
Liz Atkin lives in Newcastle. Her first poetry collection Glee with a Blue Background was published in 1999 by Diamond Twig Press, Newcastle.
Page(s) 34
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