Golden Hour
The air ambulance is here.
Its white paunch
presses into the field
disturbs the suburban air
as two men run towards me
and the glittering windscreen
and my unwashed jeans.
Look at them
so drunk on purpose
pursued by a cloud of verbs:
manage, manipulate, perform, insert…
They call it the Golden Hour
and I don’t want it.
I want the cheap metal minutes
that scratch at your skin
when the rust infects
to a kind of peace.
For a moment I almost give in
as they wrap
bandages and words
– love and sweetheart – around my limbs.
On a stretcher
they raise me above the crowds.
I wish they could lower me
into the mulch
behind the old swings
bin the cut jeans and the empty syringe
have an extra Marlborough on the long way home.
Alexandra Price is a writer, mentor and mother. She has written poetry and book reviews as well as a memoir on her experience of reading Proust’s In Search of Lost Time during maternity leave. She has also mentored young offenders, teaching poetry and creative writing. Her poetry has been published or forthcoming in The Friday Poem, The Amphibian, Riverstone Literary Journal and Dodging the Rain. Alex currently works on a community farm with vulnerable adults.