Can I get some salvation
around here? I ask
the ceiling with its
curving mildew.
And I think
isn’t it a tired idea,
the meek
inheriting the earth.
Winter is wet. Groundwater
drenching. Neighbours
are fly-tipping
their own gardens.
I’m so hungry, I dream
of eating hot plums
and radiating
breakfasts for all.
I ask the scrapmen,
Do you know where I can find
salvation? But they drive
on, broadcasting their call
to worship, congregation
of white goods jostling
in a truck church.
Have you got salvation?
I ask next door, a woman
who lifts her butcher’s eyes
and nods
to the roofers, flashing
their goggles and pulling
the triggers on their gas guns
below a candyfloss sky.
And as they work, rolling out
the bitumen and mineral,
covering tears and patching
the gullies
of our insufficiency,
their edge of blue swings ajar
to mend what is broken.
.
JLM Morton
Picture Rupert Loydell
.