The list

One. Make sure you get up on time.
Two.  Not everything needs to rhyme.

Three. Do not fret on all she said,
till after coffee, heaped jam, bread.

But, as for cleaning, more is more,
resist the hoover.  That was four.

Five, carry water where the birds
fight and flourish, without words.

Then see the sky, all you have missed.
Light flies eastwards.  Scrap the list.

Alison Brackenbury’s latest collection is Then, Carcanet 2013.  Her next collection is due from Carcanet very early in 2016.  New poems can be read at her website:
www.alisonbrackenbury.co.uk