Soon

Jacqui Rowe

The first pen I take out is dry. The birds

are quiet today, this Friday we still call

good come round too soon, when nothing

will be soon in never-ending Lent.

No one cuts the shaven grass today,

no setting off the mower with a lick

and a cough, round the spindly tree

already in its cap of flimsy leaves.

The white enamelled pen that works

is heavy in my hand. I bought it from a stall

in a market I’ve forgotten I can’t go to

any more, where nobody can go.

Then a bird starts by the window and I think

it must be a blackbird, this tune like those

you hear close by in the evening.

A helicopter sends it on Its way.

Jacqui Rowe is a Birmingham writer, who has been Writer in Residence at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts where she established and still delivers the creative writing programme. Her latest poetry collection Other Things I Didn’t Use To Know is forthcoming from Indigo Dreams, having been joint winner of the press’s annual collection competition.