Outside in the street, where skies have opened,

a dingy curtain flaps across the day,

as rain beats down with blank persistence

on shining roofs of cars, dissolves

my windowpanes, bringing back to mind

for no apparent purpose a wet break

at primary school: how in partitioned rooms

with raggedy copies of Beano or Dandy,

we were fractious Bash Street Kids

with time enough to spare; and if an hour

seemed stuck forever in a non-event

of walls and rain, years have since

spun free, cruising blurred distances,

adjusted to the focus of each idle glance.