Red Boot Blur

The glass smeared, world a wash

of green and brown and grey.

Then it snagged my eye,

a violent, sudden stay.

By the ditch, where mud bled

into weeds, choked and damp,

a child’s boot. Bright red.

Lit like a single lamp.

It sat there, stark and small,

a flag of lost intent.

Against the blurring wall

of fields, heaven-sent

or abandoned.

Moving fast,

it pulled the mind along.

A memory built to last,

a wrong note in the song.