Winners 2003 : Runner-up

Tim Smith-Laing

The Passport

Setting out unprepared
from here,
past the fly-tipped sofa,
the tricycle left there

last year by the flood,
black and white signs
turned against armies invading
sunny afternoons, mud,

domestic arguments, chores,
tilted fence-posts, the not-quite
stream, the concrete aerodrome,
abandoned in the war,

where Mr and Mrs S.
passed through habit
and into customs,
with a nod at the desk.
Where an old gent
glanced over photos,
nodded back;
time spent

picking wool off fences
keeping from knowing
how to breach
the defences

dressing first dates,
fourth birthdays,
crushes, in sentiment’s
rose-tinted tenses.