Road Works Michael Bartholomew-Biggs They’re digging up the street again. You might not think the smell of tar could creep into that locked-up boxroom where I stack old memories but from a tattered duffel bag it’s fetched the essence of those summers when they came to renovate the avenue I played beside – black-polish it with bitumen like liquorice or treacle toffee. Then they’d spread and roll out flakes of grey-pink flint, as highlighting along the road ahead that led to growing-up (by way of school bus and another autumn term). Now we celebrate our tenth September with a well-made, aromatic, still untrodden year to come that curves away past fading trees.
Clear Poetry Anthology 2016
75