Suburbia: A Poem

I could live in the big city;
in the land where nature persists and
the agapanthuses intrude
onto claustrophobic pavements.
Where the scent of people living day-to-day
is sweat-sticky and jasmine-sweet
and vape hazy and
soaked with rotten ferment.

I could live in the country
where tenderstem gums
sprout wild towards the sky
and the maggies warble, gargling
just like my partner in the morning
with his mint-stinging mouthwash.
Where the air burns cold inside my nose and
the taxi drivers frequent the hospital
more often than bars and
know even the tourists by name.

But I could not live in that liminality
where the houses and lawns repeat
in single, double, triple vision
on the same ash road that runs to the motorway
and where the cars rush down, with their
tick tick tick-ing indicators,
ka-thunking over speedbumps in the forty zone,
just to slip in amongst the brickwork of
identical red-eyed metal beasts
going nowhere, puffing smoke and
exhaling exhaustion in tonnes.

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This collection was originally published on my old writing blog.