Poem 336

Twin incidents of road rage and road love …

Cobham Drive

Beside the road the boats lie
like floating delicacies on toothpick
masts
              on the floodlit pitch at St Pat's
fluorescent soccer strips hurl themselves
through the evening
                                          red lights pump
inside the grille of an ambulance

there is something I want to write about

last Saturday when everything went wrong
coming home I saw in a chain across the street
a car door open
                                 elderly Samoan shouting
at his son who was raising
his fist to a man on the pedestrian
crossing
                  wife small daughter and baby
in a pram

the city was full of incidents
crowds spilling off the sidewalks
everyone was 
doomed
                 and particularly me

                  on Cobham Drive a man veered
                  suddenly to the side of the road
                       and stopped
                   he was beside the sea
                   holding hands with a woman on a bicycle