Kingfisher on a tram

After a while they start to annoy you
perched on every pondside information board,
common as unicorns,

so you add them to your life's quests
and weekend treks to willowy pools
where a man in a cap has just seen one
just a minute ago

and you trek home having seen nothing
but a man in a cap
and you blame yourself for being bad
at looking until at last, at last

a whacking great blue bruiser
of a thing, scruffy as a brickie mixing cement
sits or rather stands a stone's throw from you
long enough for you to believe in unicorns -

and years later thanks to this
you register the next split-second biro streak
along the grey canal past Matalan

that makes that instant click,
that vision lifelong, Meadowhall Elysian,
your tattooed ticket-girl an angel and your tram
a barge of burnished gold.

© 2012 Julia Deakin