have meaning to write of it

since she told me that it moves

at four miles an hour


rumbling along

takes sixteen hours from here to shrewsbury

leaving early all standing up

and concentration



he says they don’t grumble if stuck behind a while

just take photographs


we hear it going on it’s way

to some event those days


these days locked down like the rest of us


used to hear it as a child come down the hill so ran to the gate to watch

or at road works the tar still hot and steamy

the smell being flattened by the thing

the chest beating with excitement