Twitchy twelve, drifting backstreets home from school,
blue-black, green-gold tie, hung loose, another boy jump-cut
in to steal my scene – 16, or so, but already wearing
an old-man’s face, sleek bomber jacket, skin-tight
jeans, bleached a washed-out shade of ‘What the fuck
you staring at?’ right toe cap zeroed-in towards my groin
but missed its mark, he smirked off out of shot, triumphant
anyway, before returning out of nowhere, the other day,
foot zipping like a crash-zoom, through the memory of air,
propelled by untold furies, decades on, me clueless still,
over what I’d done, except be there, I traced his ghost
boot as it failed, once more, resolving to delete the footage.
—Published 5th of April 2023
About Matt Gilbert
Matt Gilbert is a freelance copywriter, who also blogs at richlyevocative.net, about place, books and other distractions. Originally from Bristol, England he currently gets his fill of urban hills in South East London. He’s had poems published by Anthropocene, Black Bough and Ink Sweat & Tears amongst others.