New Poetry by Tess Matthews

Taxi, oh

Winding through

The early dark, the

usual identity parade

Unfolds, beyond

The window’s glass.
But in this smoothing hour

I find them all

inseparable

As air and sky.

A pile of leaves

Entwined in a wind-cheater,

leans against

A concrete fence

Or else, the wind-cheater

Is bound

about the sodden pile

By art, or by coincidence.

Further down,

There’s a man walking

behind a woman

And his limbs

move limp and fluid

And flamboyant

Like a jellyfish

And the woman’s pace

Connotes annoyance.

There are at least

Five minutes further

drive for the patient driver

Who, all this while,

Has his rivets beaten out

Mints exhausted

And cargo cooked.

A further five minutes

Before sprinting out

Along street lights

Reflected and doubled

In full-guttered puddles

To fumble cheap metals

And trip at the door.


- Tess Matthews 2016

Tess Matthews is from Melbourne Australia. She has been writing poems for a short time only, but has been reading poems for quite a lot longer.