Bike-Clips Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

The night before my first promised fishing trip,
homemade floats lay in a plastic tackle box,
whittled from dead hazel,
my mother's clear nail varnish locking in the red.
Chilblains throbbed while I waited for the alarm.

When it rang, condensation ran down the window,
an ice ribbon forming across the base.
At five, a joint exercise: sandwiches in foil.
My stepfather filled the thermos with sweet tea.
On went the bike-clips, right then left.
The gate-latch quietly lifted.

Wellies slipping off the pedals,
the shed-smell of damp rod bags on my back.
Frozen mud ruts bucked the forks, handlebars a rodeo bull.
Cowpats passed like medieval shields.
Breath-smoke thickened, half a mile to go.

A moorhen croaks,
and ahead, the hawthorn hedge, bare,
the moon on the water, caught in its twigs like baited bread