Campagnolo Super Record
Even when I asked for your number
it felt like swapping details at the scene
of an accident.
A year after you cleared the glass
from the road, paid off the bill,
filed away the witness statements,
I’m watching from the microclimate
of my Mercedes SLK as you dart
from a side road on your racer,
a fluorescent fish, too quick
for the protecting shoal
of the rush-hour peloton.
Here comes the double-decker,
a warship, cleaving the tarmac
into ripples, rolling you
out of the lane. Your face
registers the shock, the heart
beat in your throat, and you look
the way you looked the night
you found out I’d done
what I always knew I would do,
when your best friend and your sister
were paramedics, calling your name
as you shook the stars from your eyes
and tried to sit upright. But even after
the crunching pavement
of my final text, the crushed polystyrene
of ignoring your voicemails, I’m not sure
I can resist the jolt, the lurch, the slide
of recognition, that I won’t
lean out, wave, call your name –
About the Author:
ROSALIND EASTON is an English teacher, poet and PhD student based in South East London. She is one of the winners of the 2020 Poetry Business International Book and Pamphlet Competition; her winning pamphlet Black Mascara (Waterproof), forthcoming in 2021 with Smith|Doorstop, will be her first published work.
