for O

Sun’s setting behind us at 5 pm;
a turquoise stripe below a rain front
strokes in sudden severance,
as does the sunshine after rain.
We’re out street-combing once again,
out along the pavement’s edge
for snippets, abject filaments
of telephone junction-box wire.

You have your cloth-bag for each object:
packing tape, blue or yellow twine,
towards up-cycled basketwork …
I’ve got the bits of scribbled paper
and now, back in my element,
can hear the tug of spoken words,
their ebb and flow between us
‘on a day to honour’, as you said.

It’s a day with rain clouds up ahead,
but also sunshine after rain
picking out pale green mildew
luminous on a wintry bough,
making the white house opposite glow.
Belisha beacons flash their orange
and I’m struck by all this perseverance
as you stoop for one more Merzbau
scrap of stuff beneath my notice,
love, lifting it into the light.