Contemporary British PoetsNick Makoha from NER 41.2 Buy the issue in print or as an ebook VERONA It was your day off when I came into the world.Until then you had no interest in dried leaves,or how a woman might use her hand as a scaleto pour raisins into a bowl or how water moves to the sea.What use was there in something so vast,something you had not seen with your own eyes?In any case you were never one for fishing,for waiting for life at the end of a line.After the nightshift you would park the Mazda on the drive, rest the paper on the steering wheel,pen in one hand, beef sandwich in another.Seventeen across—nut roast cooked for high fliers (10).You would wait for the street sweeper to appear in your wing mirror. Listening to his broom comb the pavement as you held your sandwichlike fruit flicking the radio to 99.8.Twelve down—Girl carries on in Juliet’s place (6).I don’t have this scene on tape but I know that I was six weeks late and that the 12-inch cigar in your glove compartment was for me.Mama would never let you smoke in the car. The weather report you say was interrupted by a jackknifed lorry on the M6.No casualties except the driver the only other personyou knew who had broken his collar bone in three places.Hence the basketball in the back seat and mood swings that have no language.Don’t be afraid remember your wings—Seventeen down(10) Astronaut. And the name you gave me—Twelve down—Verona.The sun hung suspended between two houses when your heartbeat slowed and I became something new you could catch in both hands. PRELUDE 1On the B-ball court when the sun bent its neckto look through trees, I shot free-throws like a gamblerthrowing it all in regardless. The sky flickered blue.On scuzzied rooftop light streamed across the walland disappeared. There was no death only change.Sometimes I am troubled by the strange doubleness.What name do you give the departed? Those thattransmute in an exhibition of lightning. That’s the questionI was trying to erase with a new pair of Jordans, a backboard,coconut water as my fuel supply, and cloudless Sunday afternoon. 2I should be missing home or at home trying to understand him.The only other person who rolls down the driver’s-side windowto smoke and thinks that the world can’t see, as the engine grindsat the traffic lights adjacent to the church. Your church. At leastthe one you were baptized in. Kind folk who in the city’s silencecall your name around a collection plate, humming. Part salesmenpart one-time prophets with their eyes closed trying to leavethis universe behind. Heel and soul they dance, hooked lips,hooked lives because what smarter way is there to loseyour addictions than to prove yourself in front of the legend. Share this:TwitterFacebook