Commuted
Five minutes earlier
and she would have
missed all this traffic;
would have managed more
than a tree point turn
in the road she'd lived
on for twelve years
(going on thirteen,
seems like a lifetime)
and a fifty-yard crawl
to the school gates
where breakfast battled
mothers
drop recalcitrant
sulkers from the capsules
of air conditioned,
cushioned four by fours
where the nearest they
see to difficult conditions
are the wet leaves from
roadside sycamores
and the sobbing,
urine-soaked pushchairs
of the chain smoking,
council-house mothers
hurrying across the
road
to get their Wednesday
night lottery ticket.
Five minutes earlier
and she would have
missed all the suited gents
in their starchly
morninged shirts
and splash of colour
ties;
those heavy coated,
pavement jostling
student brickies and
hairdressers
crowding the bus stop
and dashing through traffic
like raindrops in the
ears of squalling babies,
ear pods blaring with
the foul-mouthed utterance
of new age of
record-spinning celebrities
too young to remember
vinyl
and what the
abbreviation EP stands for.
Five minutes earlier
and her brown-stained,
coffee flavoured flask of tea
would still be hot from
the kettle
and not warming her lap
in the brake-screeching nightmare
of horns and screams
and too much blood.
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