We meet in the middle, a wellie-slap of swamps
left and right, bridge of the more solid stuff
just negotiable – and our gaze wanders, courtesies
are weighed up as eyes search:
you're thinking
world leaders, ongoing
climate negotiations,
right?
Or family
braving roads,
roast,
trimmings?
Simply idiotic weather, or a global matter
that warrants a deeper voice, a graver greeting?
How lightly to play this?
First words stick.
Stalled lips are given a quick lick, throats a harmless
humph: flippant, then? Or quasi pompous?
Fellow or other? Shared
wavelength, or what?
True to self would be the thing. –
But in this very local, this really quite
neighbourly mud?
You go first.
All Rights. Angela Arnold.
Angela Arnold's work has been published in a variety of UK poetry magazines as well as anthologies produced by Templar, Frogmore Press, Eyewear and others. Her collection In|Between is coming out next year (Stairwell Books). She is also an artist and a creative gardener who enjoys her synaesthesia and language/s and is currently learning Welsh.
