Sitting beside an open window
reading poetry to the click clacking
of the vertical blinds in the summer wind
I just watched a tent marquee,
billowed out in green and white stripes,
pick up its leg and attempt to climb
over the neighbour’s garden wall.

A blackbird, watching this giant spider
bend one white plastic leg over the brick wall
continued his rooftop chatter,
and at number 17 the boys were ready set
go for an after-school race on red tricycles.

The same gust that snapped poles from pegs
in the neighbour’s yard
hissed through the trees behind the house.
A tunnel of wind from front to back
and a cacophony of doors slamming shut.
The England flags billow from upstairs windows at number 5
as someone’s television announces kick off,
and in the distance I hear a train
hoot into St David’s station at rush hour.

The gust subsides for a moment
leaving the marquee suspended in motion,
back-broken and caught in an attempted escape
from the prison of barbeque and washing line.

All is still but the clicking of the blinds and the keys.