Len Webster's 'summer '71' Poem by Len Webster

In the heat
the goodness
soaking through my skin

i felt virtuous

i walked
along the crooked mile
waiting for golden hands

to grasp mine

i strayed
and found a dead man
lying stiffly

in the gutter

i sighed
breathing deeply
to cover

my own fear

this could
this could have been
me

i tell myself

and through
the blinding tears
i know

it was



(First published in the author's collection
'Behind the Painted Veil', Outposts Publications,
Walton-on-Thames, Surrey,1972, page 9)