The fourth weekend in spring, 2020 

Three seasons in one long weekend: Friday,  

it’s spring, Saturday summer, Sunday -  

perfect for cricket.  

By Monday it’s autumn and People’s Park is a time machine,  

not blue, but green, so very, very green, 

stretching all the way to October.  

We’ll skip this lock-down summer  

while the chocolate eggs are fresh  

and They can still claim willingness of the flesh.  

And the spirit holds  

water in its hands.  

On Victoria Street, smashed shop fronts wear wooden bandages.  

fuckABout scrawled across the blue shutters of a job agency.  

Fairy god mothers are all dead  

and blame is sprinkled from stock-piled confetti  

onto front-line Cinderellas .  

No pumpkins. No gowns.  

Yet the park is green, so very, very green,  

and the puddles of daisies, giants’ spit,  

go on and on