CARTWHEEL


First there was Peter Benson’s
face (freckled like a sparrow’s egg)
peering through the hedge;

then my absurd attempt to sky-walk:
foot-foot-hand-hand,
the sudden swoop of sun,
a catapult of knobbly knees,
soft thump on new-mown grass
(and Peter still the right way up,
wreathed in greenery and grinning).

Past avenues of towering shelves,
gravitas of books and the librarian’s
plumb-line silence, the gusset of my
ribbed wool tights was sunk mid-thigh
after all my dizzy turns;

grasping table-corners to steady me,
I dropped into an empty chair
directly opposite Peter,
gap-toothed amid old hardbacks
teetering awkwardly sky-high.

He slipped me some gum.
Both weightless and freewheeling,
there was no nun to tell us not to.