Huntsman, past Budget Saver, faster than my eyes blink
Hands not aloft, but grasping,
Clasping the smooth white of ‘documentation’
An impossible authority of forms –
His coat is unstitched, the quilting leaks from patch to patch
Like a field bereft of harvest.
Pramhanded, I thrill when I sense his directionandintentionandmomentum
Towards me, in front of the library’s sealed lips.
I want the moment of a shared disappointment
I have the power of saying ‘It’s shut. It didn’t say it would be on the website but it is’.
Sidelong still, the man tries the door.
Shadethrower. Prick, just trust me.
‘But I needed to – bugger them – they’ll moan when they’re late
But I won’t bother then’.
He’s off now, because it’s half past ten and nothing tastes as good as a Tetley’s in the Orange Tree in the certainty that your forms will be late and it isn’t your fault.
Stefanie Moore 