The cut-through

Conker freshness;
morning air heavy with expectation.
But it is not new, this walk:
Past the post office,
the bus stop,
the dog that barks at the gate.
Over the recreation ground,
where dew soaks through black shoes to grey socks.
Round the corner,
pulse quickening as the bollard looms,
surrounded by the flotsam of youth:
A coke can; a plastic bag; an open prawn sandwich
spewing its maggoty contents over the paving.
The dull ache rises;
an overwhelming urge to turn and run
home to the smell of toast and laundry,
the jabber of the radio and clatter of cutlery.
Home to sink into a warm, dark den of books and beanbags.
But no: the cut-through.
Fence to the left,
wall to the right,
just the right height
for leaning, scrawling, giggling, gawking.
No sticks, no stones,
no broken bones;
just all this otherness, far from home.
Buttoned up, head down,
and out the other end.