for Laura
the vinyl rip crackles in my earphones
& I misread a line in the poem
the guitar describes a grey-green river
now children are reading to touch the screen
to some extent the pops create the rain
who knows the last time I savoured a pear
objects exist in their metadata
I know the flavours from the tasting notes
but the object outlasts its surrogate
the child touches her way through the poem
my hands cold with rain sticky with pear juice
vapour trails between subject and object
& language is only a memory
of a whole in our pear-coloured boat
Angus will be reading at the UEA Poetry Festival.