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Emergency Services

Author: 
Martyn Crucefix

With our little ones, we like to show them

the speeding hulks of the emergency services.

 

Only yesterday, the red blast of a fire-engine

throwing its light like a trim blue weight.

 

Moments earlier, you gathered up your girl

and dashed to the curb for the black windows

 

of two white vehicles speeding to A & E.

The howl of squad cars becoming hypnotic . . .

 

And till now I never wondered what it might

be they learn. You say it’s our concern

 

for one another: how we share the world

Or perhaps we teach them cowed obedience,

 

pulling in as they pass. Or maybe it’s no more

than aesthetics, bright lights, caricature.

 

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From 14 No 11 (Feb 2011)

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