Health And Safety

Life – a Risk Assessment

We all begin
full of ghosts of our futures
lives dividing like cells
into things that might happen
or just pass us by.

Don't look cautiously for
the one who could love you
exactly as you need to be loved
the safer option is finding
the one you can love properly.

That night when you sat in the dark
on a bench in the park
kissing a stranger
you let become the man
you leant and leant and leant on
until he cracked.

You won't see cars like sharks
coming through the traffic,
child-catchers haunting your days
but those slumbering nightmares wait
to rise to the occasion
in your memory’s sieve.

Petrol flares the fire, the child’s lost
as grief and guilt pull you under
grabbing your ankles as you're
flung back into that night
on a park bench, kissing.