Blood Test On Rollestone Street Poem by Edwin Hopper

It's an unproductive life for sure.
Each month the same as the one before.

The only lock down difference I've seen.
Winter dead trees have turned summer green.

Come to town for your annual medic test.
Nothing dramatic, it's usual NHS.

Do you think the car will start asks my wife.
After lock down weeks. Our battery has life.

No tracks in the lane, no recent car.
Twigs lie still. Unbroken on the tar.

Branches are low across the main road.
Not hit by trucks with a higher load.

A bus has three people, front, middle and back.
Hedges stick out. Fallen leaves turned black.

Unused parked cars have dirty windows.
Leaves and litter collect in their shadows.

Police cars drive by, looking bored,
at dusty crime-freetight-locked doors.

It's quiet as a winter Sunday night-time.
Except it's really a Monday lunchtime.

At corners old men in zip jackets and hats,
talk loudly. England's had it. That's that.

Old women stop for a distanced chin wag.
their shopping bags full of food, mags, and fags.

Sat on the steps of the homeless hostel.
Two girls glare at my luck, feeling hostile.

A masked van driver curses in distress.
searching for a badly written address.

Two cleaners dressed like hospital matrons,
take his package of plastic aprons.

These low paid people, no longer spare parts,
in fact vital to societies heart.

My life is unproductive for sure.
Each month the same as the one before.

One day, I'll queue for my blind date with fate,
and I'll learn my place,in the real R rate.