These are not neanderthal pavements

nor homo erectus lampposts

these shoes are homo sapiens’                     

and the woman who walks

without a thought of how she walks

wears out the thin leather of her soles

leisurely

or sometimes rushing

on these legs that aren’t australopithecus

nor ice-age legs

these calves and thighs

of their time

and sometimes she saves time

by taking the train or a taxi

or the bus

busy as she is sometimes

in  her time

and no aurochs bar her way

though the streets are often full

of marvellous creatures

and sometimes she wonders

who she is

whose life is this

wandering in her time

on legs that belong nowhere else

in homo sapiens shoes

on non-neanderthal pavements

nor even Victorian streets

though these streets were laid

when Victoria walked

and her hands are not neolithic hands

nor  are her calves of ancient Carthage

but of today

Saturday 18^th March 2006

though also of

23rd February 1950

the day she was born

and of the many days between

as for example

18^th August 1971

her wedding day or

12^th December 1976

when her first son was born

and yesterday she was

another person

walking these same streets

on her way to work

or home

the streets that were not quite the same

because so many feet between

in those fateful twenty four hours

hadn’t walked them

and she different because

she hadn’t yet spoken on the phone to her daughter

about the flowers for the patio

nor had she unloaded the dishwasher

though she had unloaded the dishwasher many times

but not this one time

in this one order

at this precise time

wearing exactly what

she may never have worn exactly before

or may have

nor had her boss been moody

and high-handed as usual

as is the way with bosses

in her time

though not Pleistocene bosses

before bosses were

or Medieval bosses

who were kings or priest or lords

in the time before

The Divine Right of Bosses

nor is her smile of the second century B.C

nor the tenth century A.D.

nor even of 1940

not a wartime smile

but a smile of a post-war woman

nor her voice

the voice of a girl who learned

in depression classrooms

a Secondary Modern voice

she one of the Secondary Modern many

a bright new building for

the bright new times

nor is her glance

the glance at the shop window

or the passing bus

or the maybe familiar face

a Grammar School glance

or a suburban glance

she growing in the town

still in the town

nor is the tilt of her head

a university tilt

nor a tilt of the south

or the east

being of the north and west

nor is her pensiveness metropolitan

a small-town pensiveness

she trapped in the small town

an entrapment not at all like the rural

nor is her laughter American

or her anxiety Chinese

nor the way she sleeps

sometimes on her right side

sometimes on her left

sometimes with her arm round her man

sometimes not

an Eskimo way of sleeping

or the way of Arapaho or

of tribes long lost

of  whom we know nothing

who slept always on their backs

maybe

nor is the way she feels

which she can’t name

when the weekend she has so longed for

finally arrives

and all she had wanted to do

seems impossible

and the expanse of time

she had hoped to fill

shrinks and flies

a primeval forest feeling

or Pilgrim Father feeling

or an Elizabethan England feeling

nor her jealousy a Greek jealousy

nor her maternal affection

an affection of mud huts

or favelas

or townships

nor is her relaxing

her stretching on the sofa

listening to something light on the radio

or letting the tv images wash over her

a slum relaxing

a poverty relaxing

but the relaxing of a woman

with enough

which is not the enough

of emperors or dictators

or managing directors

or footballers or film stars

or kings or queens

or barristers

or professors

or Prime Ministers

but the enough of a shop assistant

whose house is small

terraced

and without a garden

the enough of a woman

who knows no more than this enough

is available to her

nor is her love Etruscan

nor a 1920s love

nor a Home Counties Edwardian love

nor a bohemian Parisian love

nor a Melanesian or Tristes Tropiques love

nor was her divorce

an aristocratic divorce

nor a Georgian divorce

nor her heartbreak American

nor is anything about her

not of the moment

of the many moments that have made her

and make her

a woman of moments

and could those moments

have been other

could she have been

other

even her not knowing

whether she could have been other

might have been other

but could it

were her feet destined to walk here

exactly here

at exactly this time

through billions of years

were these pavements already inevitable

in Neanderthal times

or did the many steps

the steps of this child

holding her mother’s hand

skipping on her way to ice-cream

or the steps of this old man

shuffling home after

his tiring trip to the paper shop

or the gestures of this teenager

laughing as he tells his mates

about his latest escapade

did each tiny gesture make

a newness

and is that newness being ever added to

so where she is

is one possible destination among many

and the path she followed

one of potential millions never followed

or was there a single path

and every step decided

before taken

and her present destination

which is just a stop along the way

where she had to be

wondering

whose life she is living

and how she got here.