Welcome Break Services, M40

Red and white lights
Dark sky. Heaving clouds
A sense of terror
Us and the great unknown

In the services
Under a great arc of tubes
Bustle and noise – ceaseless movement
Here, a sense of vertigo

Your face is hard. There is no softness
Impatient, like your mum
Out of sympathy, yet wise

So, there is this noise and scurrying
And the innefable –
That which cannot be described
Which terrifies me more?
The sky, or the inside?

Streatham Ice Rink

Learning how to skate requires
An act of faith that you
Are not going to collide

The chipped concrete and scuffed paint
Are a makeshift world
Neither inside nor outside

Being afraid is what makes
My arms flap and windmill
And this causes me to fall

The fear is self-fulfilling
I am waiting to crash
Just as I have done before

Children do not know this dread
Of an unknown future
Graceful and elemental

They circle the shining lake
There is nothing in front
As they pirouette and slide