Oh lucky man

The route he followed
from his front door to school
contained eighteen double drains,
four singles and only one triple,
in the underpass beneath Grapes Hill.

He took each double with a skip,
imagining his stores of good luck stockpiled,
filling up like a car in a lake.

On the day he passed his driving test,
he parked on George Borrow road
and walked into school through the North Entrance.
He was glowing with the tumbling perameters
of six minor errors
and didn't realise until it was too late,
the light clunk - like a door unbolting -
of his foot landing on the last drain of three,
he thought of game shows,
he thought of stock markets,
he thought of gravity
and yes there was the shock
and the stumbling into the road
and his head of year
driving a Saab very slowly.