Rural Middlesex Again
Over the railway bridge we found the stream With a tractor tyre, pram wheels and odds and ends. I bagged the bits to make a go-cart from While Jonathan heaved the tyre out, two best friends. Since kindergarten it had been the same, Being so unalike, living so near: Joffy was lowering, dark, a stammerer, Top-notch at games, where I was fair and bright, Scouring fresh libraries for books to gut, Last to be picked at football and all that.
We stood a-tiptoe on the bridge and touched The humming wires that looped from pole to pole, Or, to be accurate, he did. I watched Leary of megavolts, till he grinned unscathed And swung me up beside him on the wall.
Up there you could see for miles, across the mess Of roofs and streets and gardens to the blue Horizon over Pinner. Happiness
John Whitworth
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