New poem: Van

I once had to hire a van to move some of my

stuff. I got it from one of those guys who loan

out vans from an arch under the railway. He

said that I didn’t need to check over the scratches

because he didn’t charge for that anyway. He

just checked out that all the insurance was in

place and I went off. When I got to my place,

I went upstairs to get the first boxes, came

down to the street, opened up the back door

and this boy jumped out. I say, ‘boy’ but I think

he was a young-looking fifteen or sixteen year

old. I didn’t get much of a chance to look at

him because he was off in a flash. He must

have been waiting for someone to unlock the

door and he was off up the street, running

faster than I could catch him. I wasn’t going

to call the police. He hadn’t done me any

harm. As far as I could see, he hadn’t done

any harm to the van. I had to clean it up,

if you get me. But he had used a bag, so

it wasn’t too bad. There were some crumbs.

And some plum stones. And some caraway

seeds. They smell a bit like aniseed. When I

was a kid, we used to have caraway seed

bread and some of my friends said that I

smelled of it.