‌Marge; or, To my phone box

Alone she rests in the lane This P.O. red electric lady Has lips

Recalling that

Once

Two bombs struck a school in Catford A mother’s voice still shrieks

And Lulu’s lovers hum to her hits My old men piss and puke

And a dog waits while she natters to nan.

But from inside

Her thumbed brass and copper clatters like clockwork through the slats

To join the Wrigley’s, the Number 6 and all the other Ends

Then

Where Marge rests

Around a trillion breaths filled the space Each breath carried

Voices of lost toys caught in flight

A frisbee, a football

A ringing shuttle that fleets and spins Till it tangles in these few trees, trussed and then with care

brought down.

Today

so much later on than then Unspun now for you

and spread like buttercups butter the green to hear said as sand speaks

Flowing from sand to glass to glass like a filament

burns through and breaks

The link from you to him to me. “Operator what number please?” it asks us and we reply

“Again!

That one that takes us back past the stopped sand Cross the green, the field, the stream

Through the glass to our Wonderland Whereof here we dream

And the past plays back forever And so do we.”

Thanks Marge.

November 25, 2015

‌2016