Serenade

Someone has replaced the vape and takeaway debris
that loitered here when I last walked this way
with a trail of jasmine flowers,
skyfall lucidae on sun-bleached asphalt.
At the canal,
lovers on the towpath
weave through willow fronds
sure as a cleat hitch.
A woman with proper running shoesshares a metre with her lurcher—
their loose-ankle skip wisps
above the path like hovercraft.
That one couple waiting at the school gate,a generation older than the rest,
the way he tucks her hair, bends to kiss, like
she has nectar only he can siphon.
And a girl, 6 or 7, calls outover some back garden wall,
Hello, Hello, You hear me?....
to all of us or none.