Street magic
I don't believe in magic. But something
hovers along these streets, something
like dust not settling hangs just above
the slippery cobbles, and it's more than
the messy flash of reflected streetlight
and it's more than the colourful spill from some
long gone car, lying now in the gutter
as though someone had pierced a rainbow
and let it fall sighing down to die here
in the dark, by a drain, with the swollen fag-ends
and the dog urine and the spit of the loud lads.
This is something else – our shoes splash through it
whatever it is, and I swear it makes our stepping lighter.
My feet might fly, and any second I might be gone
unless I grab your arm to stop myself
which I never would.
This poem first appeared in Dodging the Rain. Mary Ford Neal is a writer and academic currently based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her poetry is recently published/forthcoming in Ink, Sweat & Tears, perhappened, Capsule Stories, Dust Poetry Magazine, The Winnow, Twist in Time, Ice Floe Press, Marble, and Dodging The Rain, and her debut collection will be published by Indigo Dreams Press in 2021. She tweets about poetry and other things here: @maryfordneal.