Stuck traffic, a jam to end all jams
and bored rigid in a taxi, the counter
climbing breathlessly
up towards its own ticking Everest;
six in the evening,
a possible fight in the sunset eve
as tempers boil over
and there by St. George’s
Hall, a complex, but through my taxi
windows, silent and animated argument
began to unburden
itself in the Liverpool warmth.
As long as we sat there,
engine revving like a lion pacing
in its own cage, I expected the worst,
a fist fight,
perhaps a knife,
perhaps a gun,
would appear and silence the mood
of the city, come now ready the mourners…
yet instead one laughed, despite the heated exchange
and slapped the other on the back,
protagonist and hero, villain and central character
fighting for the smile that beamed and melted
the taxi window
and made me smile in return…
no fight here, not the place,
there is as much chance
of seeing a Dalek play saxophone
on the stairs leading to Big Ben
as the anticipated ugliness
we often imagine.
Ian D. Hall 2017