I visit July in the park; we have been strangers

Jen Horsfall

A hush begins with the last angle of light, a leaning of the world toward less.

Trees thin to silhouettes, their leaves sinking the sky’s paler grammar.

Children’s voices fade to punctuation,

the last football arcs through dusk like something misremembered.

A boy lingers by the netless goal,

clutching the hem of his ragged breath,

standing below the white open bracket

like he is a secret, the last word of the day.

This is the hour the joggers slow, check their wrists as if to confirm a world is still turning.

The pond, long indifferent, now takes the sky in whole.

On a bench by the bandstand,

an old man unfolds his sandwich as if it were a letter from an old love.

You are somewhere, with someone,

inside this evening too.

Above the cricket green, the sun descends with restraint,

sifts through blinds and balconies

of the nearby council block onto kettles,

bills hanging on by the holiday fridge magnet,

tattered PE bags and toasters.

Everything feels curated: the ornamental bridge, the woman with a novel

and nowhere to be, the hush before lamplight.

And me, blistered sandals, a habit of turning beauty into thinking,

as if reflection were proof of belonging to the evening.

JEN HORSFALL is an emerging poet and teacher from the UK, currently teaching English in Naarm/Melbourne. Jen has an MA in Literature and Critical Theory from Goldsmiths and her writing has been featured in Poetry London and Ink in Thirds.