Wednesday

I'm having trouble deciding what to write this week, so I have turned back to a 'collection' of my poetry that I made in 2006. This is not the best poem I have ever written (I hope I have not written that yet) but it immediately takes me back to a moment in my life, to the unexpected girlish excitement which followed an escape from a disappointing sojourn which should not have been so. I hope it will take its readers somewhere too.

Drive Interrupted

What if we had stopped?
Tread those slumbering slopes,
reached the sugar encrusted cone,
come closer on the rim,
stared into the untamed core -
sodden now, cold, ashless.
Unable to take another step
without slipping.
Sure only of the hand we held.

We would not have stopped,
eaten cake on the Via Barberini,
kissed on the Spanish Steps,
laughed at the silly witches flying
in the carnival lights
or seen the ruins rise unexpectedly
under the smudge
of a Roman moon.