Pass

for Holly

We calculate you’re two corners away by now,
first time alone in the car, navigating through
the twelve big houses at the edge of town,
the fallow field where once in a blue moon
a spring appears like a flying fish at sea.
The winter night’s as clear as cooling glass
but you accelerate away from us too fast
to see the stars, the arrows on the ground.

Your music steers you on a sail of sound,
you are on fire. Your hands are Mercury,
your heart and eyes the Sun. You plough
the top road like a submarine . We try in vain
to visualise your course, the unlit shipping lanes,
the shoals of stars. We cannot see you now.

from Over (Carcanet, 2009), © Jane Draycott 2009, used by permission of the author and the publisher

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