girl next door

by steve pottinger

Wednesday 19th February 2014 5:51 pm

today

the girl next door knows

that something good is going to happen

I can hear her singing

through the bathroom wall

I just know that something good

is going to happen

today

she isn’t tired

she isn’t angry

today bringing up a kid alone

is something she can do

she feels it sure and certain and pure and true

because today something good

is going to happen

today

the council will fix the sticking door

the bills will come and she’ll have money set aside

today she can dream her boy will never be denied

a job, because there will be jobs for all

and he’ll be proud and strong

and have all the things she never got to own

because today, she knows, something good

is going to happen

today

under the grey clouds

her sun is shining

hot and bright and carrying a tune

today she is Wonderwoman, Supermum

vixen, vamp, a heartbreaker

who queues in the supermarket for reduced to clear

and dances home in the rain

because today something good

is going to happen

today

she’ll buy a scratchcard

because she knows she’s feeling lucky

she’ll buy a packet of ten

and take five minutes out

to spark one up and watch the world go by

today she’ll put on the old tunes

from back in the day

and smile to herself as she unlocks

memories of lost nights, wild secrets,

love that blazed

because today something good

is going to happen

today

none of the mistakes she’s made will ever matter

she’ll forgive herself, go out and make some more

because she’s starting out with a clean slate

she will survive

she will thrive

she feels alive in a way

she feared that she’d forgotten

and those obstacles in her way

are nothing she can’t overcome

because today

today hope is blooming inside her

like flowers in the desert once the storm has gone

and she is singing because

she knows, for a cast-iron

solid gold copper-bottomed certainty

that something good

is going to happen

today or tomorrow

sometime when she has all

but given up believing

something good something undeniably

wonderfully good is going to happen

and I hear her singing

through the bathroom wall

and I think it already has, girl

it already has.

Comments

Isobel

Sun 23rd Feb 2014 16:32

A beautiful poem.

I often wonder why people want to carry on living - in certain countries and situations, where I'm sure I'd just want to give up the ghost. Your poem answers that.

steve pottinger

Sun 23rd Feb 2014 13:41

Thanks very much for the kind words, folks.

I find it hard to 'see' my work clearly when I've first written it - too close to it, and too aware of the changes and editing that have gone on, I guess. So thank you all very much for the feedback. :-)

Dave Bradley

Thu 20th Feb 2014 16:07

Totally endorse what the others have said. What a terrific poem. Crafted, balanced, well paced, some cracking phrase-mongering and a wonderful humanity shining right through it. Great!

Laura Taylor

Thu 20th Feb 2014 09:35

*grit in eye*

Wow. Takes a special skill I reckon to write another gender, and to do it so tenderly, so carefully too.

This is a wonderful poem. I love how you resist any conclusion, how you keep that special something out of it, and it lives just in the optimism, in her song.

Some amazing lines:

vixen, vamp, a heartbreaker
who queues in the supermarket for reduced to clear

she’ll buy a packet of ten
and take five minutes out
to spark one up and watch the world go by

and she is singing because
she knows, for a cast-iron
solid gold copper-bottomed certainty
that something good
is going to happen

You're a proper poet you are Steve ;)

Frances Macaulay Forde

Thu 20th Feb 2014 05:14

A wonderfully wistful poem, beautifully observed. Well done Steve. Now I'll have to search for your other writing... I'm a new fan.

<Deleted User> (9882)

Wed 19th Feb 2014 20:48

a cast iron
solid gold copper bottomed....WOW!

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girl next door

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