Josh on the checkout at Morrison’s really hates
my shopping, or his job, or my glasses
or a whole conveyor belt of possibilities.
His finger pokes through the plastic film
of the Atlantic salmon fillets,
so the grow-at-home basil
loses the aroma battle
as the scratched Zafira heads home.
My daughters tell me to move on, Dad
but the world’s not right for me
right now.
I soak up some telly for the evening
then discover the direction of Josh’s bike ride
home, knowing I can puncture
when the time is right.
ROB WALTON is from Scunthorpe, and lives on Tyneside with his family. In 2017 poetry for adults and children, flash fictions, short stories and creative non-fiction will appear in Sidekick Books, Northern Voices, The Emma Press, The Interpreter’s House, a shop window in Marsden, Bennison Books, Write Out Loud, The Line Between Two Towns, Celebrating Change, the Worktown anthology, and DNA among others. He collated the New Hartley Memorial Pathway, and sometimes tweets @anicelad.
Image: © Copyright Billy McCrorie and licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 via geograph.org.uk/p/4728234
The Cabinet of Heed 