Round here the kids don't mind the rain,
don't try to put it off another day,
not as though they were expecting impromptu river picnics,
with hats.
They like the grit shooting up from puddles
the spray cans of mud for the sides of buses,
water spouts on the down pipes
painting algae beards on the corners.
The rain is one of them.
Flash flood in Basford,
bloke, half way through his second pint,
sticks his head out the door of the Vernon Hotel
sees the road gone,
kids swimming at the crossings.
Goes back inside until his fifth
and finds the road's come back,
just a high tide river dance across the tracks,
T-shirts draped on the automatic gates,
trousers looped around lamp posts.
Or listen to the little boy on the Sixty Two,
muttering his incantation through the sweat of steam,
listen to them on the play grounds
hair streaming, half blinded, half drowned,
they're willing the sky to do its worst.
You'd think the kids round here
had made the rain
©Rosie Garner
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