John Stammers
Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear
Harrison Ford is driving the huge, Dodge pick-up, black and shiny.
The clapboard houses flick past like hoardings with astro-turf verges
as if set there by some wild wag of a realtor.
The setting sun bruises the skyline less and less.
‘Some things’, he says, ‘you have no choice in - I found that out.’
The white line elongates the road.
We are trying to find somewhere to set down,
somewhere to pull the big truck in,
to hunker down for a while.
Everything must settle, you had said,
everything must find its place:
you, me, him, the dust thrown up in the mirror.
The road runs out under the tail-lights and away.
John Stammers’ first collection, Panoramic Lounge-bar, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and is shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2001.
Page(s) 53
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