Materials

After K.J.

What are these Materials of which she speaks?
Something about a line
My eyes follow the words but I don’t read
The siren of an ambulance
Too loud for thoughts
But there was a line

Perhaps it was the trace
Was she talking about a trace?
The oscillating siren creates a line
A loose, wobbly line that my ears follow

I glance up for a second but soon go back to read
The poem was surely mean to be read
In the Highlands or on
A remote coast
Not in the noise of a south-England city

What if I found a
Quiet place to read it?
Would I better take in its story
Or would ‘line’ jump out at me again
Sound line of a bird
Water line of a river