Canto CCCXXIII

I slow dance with my daughter til she sleeps
within the scant yards of our living room
as night falls slowly, distant car horns beep

and preconfigured streetlight haloes bloom
along the snoozy, residential streets,
where HD channels flick on and resume

their special skill of transforming our nights
into something cosily forgetful.
I won’t lay her down til her sleep’s as tight

as a Tory culture minister’s total
spend on poets that are still breathing.
A poem breaks the surface and unspools—

an effortless trickle, just like bleeding,
a slight nick and the metre does the rest.
It might just be the poem you’re now reading,

it’s certainly the next one you’ll forget.

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