Slide Rules

~

pearly brittle early winter light

a lone red kite wheels high 

an elegant drone 

scanning for carrion

in pastel clean air,

the moon, late to bed

is keeping watch, reclining 

ungainly on its back

like a pallid broken seesaw,

frosted roof tiles glare

silver-shine grey above the

schoolchildren who slide and tap-dance 

stamping on frozen puddles

that fracture, splintering

with dull bone-jarring cracks,

nearby, grandparents chaperoning 

their errant charges 

comically totter like penguins

in fear of a fall

*

© Graham R Sherwood 01/23