Looking for Lucy
By Dave Finchett
Lucy the sentinel, skirts the roadside,
harks back to a bygone age of travel,
and looks for traces of trolley buses:
like the four four six to Wolverhampton.
She lies low, hides right before your eyes,
too preoccupied to see you pass by;
and like a magician clicking fingers
she disappears behind the commonplace:
camouflaged by pavement grey or verge green,
masked by the beckoning of traffic lights,
she’s silent behind sounds of diesel, petrol,
and cloaked by chattering pedestrians;
though once seen you can find her everywhere
in the midst of all the off-beat places;
searching for liveries of green and cream -
she wears a brooch like a crest, an emblem.
Take your eyes off her and she’ll fade away,
remembering the trams and their horses;
sometimes she’ll take a ticket to the past
on a twelve minute journey to Newbridge.
Below the sparking overhead wires she’ll
switch the power for the tracks, and some will
re-emerge years hence, shedding bitumen
and chippings - as if they’re looking for Lucy.
