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.