A door bangs and a telephone rings,
Someone laughs and someone sings
And somewhere a jazz trumpet plays.
The outside enters in other ways,
Footsteps pass five floors below,
Two wasps sail in, then a slow
Growl, a rising whine,
A squeal of brakes and tyres
Pull me to the window.
Neighbours en face stare down,
Crane from their balcony,
In the echoing, half-empty town.
An ambulance, doors thrown wide,
Attends a ground-floor flat.
Gendarmes lean against the wall,
Glance up and down the street
And smoke and chat.
Emerging from the hall,
Rolling and unpeeling rubber,
A man strolls over to the gutter.
A woman edges into sight,
Hugging one elbow, half-dressed,
She bids goodbye to an event
Which took place just before
A gendarme strict in his arrest
Knocked at her flaking door.
©Terry Hodgson2020
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