GETTING BACK TO MILTON KEYNES

GETTING BACK TO MILTON KEYNES

In the cavernous minute since you disappeared behind the departures screen
I have been cold in a hard bed
everything I touch becomes an abrasive under my fingertips
even the curves on the tyres look flat and square
no you
and I clump thud home, up the M1 like a clown in a circus car
clumsy clown down at the mouth
biting rectangular lips
the joke exhaust phutt-putting cubes of smoke in the icy air.

Someone has concreted over the fields
Artexed all the plants and
the motorway and pasture melt into one
There is man on the slip road by a Calor gas fire selling broken branches.

Back home the big top is missing a few guy ropes
sags in the centre, lacks its usual Technicolor splendour
and from there on end I hang without the aid of a net on the promise of your return

Later when I nip down to the newly concreted fields
I'll be signlanguaging at the concrete cows
hoping for a little lowing
perhaps even a bovine love song
just a bit of beauty.

Some time later: the cows have a sense of irony round these parts

• three times a lady in B flat
  Ho ho ho... moo
  Yet still...no you.