I need to tell you about
Rotherham in June: how
backlit evening sunshine 

marmalades the brickwork
of those singular houses 
diagonally facing ours,

a sparkling equivalence
to the sounds of the children
of Slovakian Roma heritage

scampering homewards:
their footfalls, shouts, their 
laughs, as yet unpoliticised.

I need to tell you about
the red valerian flourishing
in gennels and side-streets;

how valerian derives from
Latin, valere, to be strong,
and always stands its ground;

how it arrived in the 1600s,
as the East India Company
gained a stranglehold in India.

I need to tell you that pure
cold rage will never thrive 
here, so long as we are here.

Matthew Paul lives in South Yorkshire. His second poetry collection, The Last Corinthians, was published by Crooked Spire Press in 2025, following The Evening Entertainment (Eyewear Publishing, 2017). www.matthewpaulpoetry.blog

Poetry submissions to thursdaypoems@gmail.com