At the Service Station
For Tom
The End.
A woman in a winter coat
is dancing
outside Burger King.
Waiting for the men
with streaky hands who come
with stretchers for old cars.
That morning
the M1 emergency. Singing
‘Don’t stop movin’,
‘I would walk 500 miles’.
Yes we are calling about –
It might be quicker
-ly as – can…
On the hard shoulder
where there is of course
no lavatory, near the exit
for Newport Pagnell.
Sliding from the fourth lane
70 – 55 – 25 –
with disco lights.
Which is why
we don’t go up to Nottingham,
I cover his phone in face cream –
he says later, ‘and we almost died.’
Rain is flaking off the stars.
Three words will find us
dancing slow praise.
Carolyn Oulton is Professor of Victorian Literature and Co-Director of the International Centre for Victorian Women Writers at Canterbury Christ Church University. She teaches on the Creative and Professional Writing BA and is Project Co-Lead for https://kent-maps.online/ in collaboration with JSTOR Labs. Her most recent poetry collection is Accidental Fruit (Worple). @writing_at_CCCU
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