Morning, and a man with two full plastic bags
comes to the edge of the dirty canal below
his tin-roofed house.
Inflated they’re like lights
for the festival of the full moon.
Gently he sets them to float on the water,
shwooshes them on their way.
He turns back up the bank, wiping his hands
on his jeans pockets, thinking nothing of it.
A patch of water hyacinth drifts by.
____________
Kate Noakes is researching a PhD at the University of Reading on poetry and breath. Her forthcoming collection is Goldhawk Road (Two Rivers Press, 2023). She lives in London and when not writing is a print maker.