Reader Submissions

Through the window

by

Leni Shilton

The Avenue 29th December 2018

The sky rests on the house 

across the road,

a grey pushed down

like icing laid thick,

neat strokes this way, then that.

The heat from yesterday 

sent away on weather maps. 

I can see a butterfly, 

and a callistemon, 

red stab against the sky, 

the wind passing over pale leaves 

The window frames my world

the new green growth 

of the peppercorn tree,

two pencil pines and powerlines 

neatness, a house, garden squares

a white car.

And a young man walks past

hair in a tight bun 

singing as he walks

doesn’t know he’s being watched 

doesn’t know he’s in a poem.