by Amanda Young
Silently she pushed
the wet, wooden wheelbarrow up the narrow path
in her long brown coat − elbows poking out.
It swooped and flapped, striking hard against her legs.
A gust of wind tore her grey and raffia hair across her narrow mouth.
She spat. Curled in her stinging lips. At the bend
she stopped. A tree-tumbling thud, dropped
the cart of crops. And reached down
with a snap of her aching back − a crumpled sheet of sunburnt paper.
A photo of a wigwam?
She drew her focus in.
Three young boys − 7 or 8 in smocks
standing conker-kneed, between the doorway of their tent.
She folded the paper to a triangle and in half again −
And put it deep into her pocket
amongst a dry stick of lavender and three copper coins.
She took in an ancient breath of smoked-oak,
lifted again the tired barrow. As she walked,
the cabbages smeared with slug-brown mud
bobbed between crackling onions.
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