© Kayo Chingonyi 2026
I am with the bairn, my favourite word
for small human, who dances to a beat
made of chatter so loud as to become absurd.
We are mutually inclined toward retreat
so, after candles and cake, we catch a bus
that takes us round the houses: Abbeydale,
Highfield, Nether Edge, Sharrow, glorious
portals. Listen brick by brick to a tale
of cars you can hear before you see them
footies stitched by skill to battered trainers
revellers without a coat between them
the clink of milk bottles, thwack of papers.
If you slow down enough you can see time
unfolding its fever-wrought, painstaking
tapestry; feel the decades intertwine,
mist rising from beyond the train station.
© Kayo Chingonyi 2026