'The Big Rain that Washed the Courage Away' by Angela Arnold

We meet in the middle, a wellie-slap of swamps

left and right, bridge of the more solid stuff

just negotiable – and our gaze wanders, courtesies

are weighed up as eyes search:

you're thinking

world leaders, ongoing

climate negotiations,

right?

Or family

braving roads,

roast,

trimmings?

Simply idiotic weather, or a global matter

that warrants a deeper voice, a graver greeting?

How lightly to play this?

First words stick.

Stalled lips are given a quick lick, throats a harmless

humph: flippant, then? Or quasi pompous?

Fellow or other? Shared

wavelength, or what?

True to self would be the thing. –

But in this very local, this really quite

neighbourly mud?

You go first.

All Rights. Angela Arnold.

Angela Arnold's work has been published in a variety of UK poetry magazines as well as anthologies produced by Templar, Frogmore Press, Eyewear and others. Her collection In|Between is coming out next year (Stairwell Books). She is also an artist and a creative gardener who enjoys her synaesthesia and language/s and is currently learning Welsh.