Today, online
In a small park in Nottingham,
I saw a man shoeing a hobby-horse.
Leaves were falling with an early frost
as he worked, bare to the waist,
with a rubber hammer.
Afterwards,
as the horse leaned against the bench,
a bright expression in its painted eye,
I watched the man
darn an imaginary hole
in an imaginary shirt,
at his feet a bolt of silver cloth
across the grass.
A crowd had gathered;
some with cameras, some with notebooks,
some with quizzical grins,
and as the man darned
the cameras clicked and flashed
while the hobby-horse rested.
Later, returning
as darkness was settling,
all that remained was a long coat
on a low branch,
an imaginary shirt,
a dispersed crowd,
and hoof prints in silver.
